The Gallery
by null-user0
Summary: Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, Anger. Five emotions with infinite possibilities. The Gallery is a series of vignettes that explores the different combinations of Riley's little friends; Anxious to know what makes Irritation? Inquisitive about concocting Curiosity? Enamored with the ingredients to Obsession? Look no further than the Gallery! NO LONGER UPDATING.
1. Joy

**Author's Note: Hey there. Real quickly, I wanted to address a few things.**

 **First of all, I wanted to say thanks to everyone who is reading along as I update. This is fun, and I'm _very_ happy with this response! I really want this fanfic to succeed and do well, and I'm grateful that everyone's been enjoying it so far.**

 **Alright, secondly, someone (whom I can't respond to, since they were a guest reviewer) noted that this covers emotion-overlap similar to a graph found online. Naturally, my curiosity was piqued, so I went and checked the graph out. When I saw it, and compared it to some of the upcoming chapters...**

 **Well, I noted that there are several differences between interpretations. Actually, _most of the emotion combinations you see in that overlap graph_ are named differently than what I've got in my fanfic (example: Melancholy in the graph is called Bittersweetness in this fanfic), and some are very much different.**

 **Here's what I wanted to say on that, to clear up confusion: the graph is fantastic, but I'm not using it to come up with my emotion combinations (heck, I didn't even know such a thing existed until you mentioned it, if you're reading this). Everything you see here is 100% made up based solely on my own thinking and reasoning; I'm using my own logic to come up with these things.**

 **That being said, I think both my fanfic _and_ the graph (which - might I add - is _not an official source; it's fan-made_ ) are equally viable.**

 **For example - you could feel Curiosity as a mix of Joy (the eagerness to see something new) and Disgust (self-loathing at doing something you know you shouldn't be). However, if you're curious about something that's not guilt-inducing, then you'd be feeling strictly Joy. Or, heck, if you're curious about something that's got you nervous, you'd maybe feel a mix of Joy and Fear.** **What I'm trying to say is that each emotion can actually give different types of influence, and - therefore - each emotion combination can be made of different emotions. Conversely, two emotions could cover more than one type of feeling.**

 **What I'm getting at is simple: _emotions are flexible. _That's one thing I've discovered as I'm writing this fanfic. Emotions can cover a wide variety of feelings, which is really interesting and makes for creative writing.**

 **So, please don't be disappointed when future chapters come: not every emotion will be made in this fanfic (there are just wayyy to many ways to interpret the combniations, contingent on a plethora of factors), and not every combination may be interpreted the way you would want it or the way that fan-made graph would interpret it. That's okay, though; I firmly believe these emotional combinations are very flexible, and - as a result - open to many different interpretations of mixed emotional influences.**

 **Anyways, enough rambling from me. I said what I wanted to say, to make sure there isn't confusion in future chapters. Have a nice day!**

* * *

The yellow sun shone down on the open expanse of highway that ran through the land like a river. The occasional car moved up and down this long asphalt spine; there was a semi truck, with its big red front and a corporate logo painted on its side. There was a pizza truck, flying like a rocket down the road, and - behind that - a small yellow vehicle driving smoothly along in the cool afternoon air.

Inside said car, its three occupants were occupied with various tasks at hand. Mr. Andersen had his eyes on the road and his hands on the wheel, contemplating where the next turn would be. His wife sat next to him, consulting a digital map on her phone that would take them to their destination. This left their daughter, Riley, in the back seat - bored out of her mind.

Inside said mind, five emotions were equally bored.

While Anger reread the same newspaper, whose headlines boldly declared that nothing was happening, Disgust redid her hair for the fifth time that day. Across the room, Fear was barely awake, staring into his untouched, long-cold tea. Sadness was lying face-down near his feet, not crying nor sobbing, but snoring. The boredom was even taking its toll on Joy, who was slouched over the console.

Riley glanced out the window and at the passing semi truck. "Buy N' Large" it declared.

"Hey, guys," Joy said. Her excitement was usually a roaring fire. Now it was a whimpering, flickering candle of a thing. "That truck has an 'N' on it..."

Silence replied to her, telling her that nobody cared.

Well, total silence didn't reply. Joy did get a half-sarcastic "Yay," from Disgust.

"Let's keep a look out for 'O' next... we might do the full alphabet five times today..." Joy said. Her failing enthusiasm flickered and died with a yawn.

Then, silence kept talking and the trip kept going at what might as well have been a snail's pace.

Riley wasn't sure when she dozed off; it was one of those bland mental states where you're not really asleep, but not really awake, either. It's where you can't escape the boring _nothing_ that's happening all around, and not even a whisper of a dream arrives to entertain you. Just blackness, and a mix of blurry colors and images of endless highway, fading in and out and blending together in an incoherent mush.

Her dad took a glance at her in the rear view mirror, and warmly smiled at the sight.

"Asleep still?" his wife asked.

"Out like a light," he said to Mrs. Andersen. Then, after a brief pause, added, "You're right - this visit is _just_ what we needed."

"I completely agree," she said. Then, pulling up the map again, "Okay, we're about a mile out of town, so where's the hotel we're staying at? I'll punch in directions so we can get our unpacking out of the way."

"Oh," Mr. Andersen chuckled, "No hotel; I've called some certain people, and, well..." his voice trailed off into a knowing grin. His wife did a double-take and gasped, a smile forming on her face.

"You're kidding!" she said, "They're okay with us..."

Mr. Andersen replied with another laugh. "Okay with it? Heck, _they_ brought the idea up; they practically _begged_ me, so - well - there we have it."

"Does Riley know?" Mrs. Andersen whispered, glancing back at their sleeping daughter.

"Not yet," her husband replied, "Do you wanna tell her?"

His wife contemplated it, then leaned back in her seat. "I know what to do. Riley, wake up!" she said, "We're here, monkey!"

"What?" Riley said, yawning and sitting up. As she rubbed her eyes, her mother repeated herself.

"We're finally here!"

Riley became completely alert at that.

Inside her head, all her emotions snapped to attention. "Finally!" Disgust and Anger said in unison.

Their exclamation caught Fear by surprise. He jolted, spilling his tea. "Whoa! Aww... my favorite tie, too..." He quickly darted up to the bedroom to grab a new one, nearly tripping over Sadness as she woke up.

"Huh? Wha...?" She mumbled, adjusting her crooked glasses as she stood again, "What's going on?"

"We're finally _here!_ " Joy shouted, running around the control panel like a happy little puppy dog, "Yay! We're here! We're here! We're here! The car ride's nearly over, guys!"

The gold emotion wasted no time in pressing a button, and the whole thing blazed yellow. A bright, happy memory rolled into existence, one of the few impressions of that day. Up until that point, not much had happened to leave a lasting emotional influence, but that all changed when her hometown's sign drifted past the car window.

Riley's smile was as bright as that memory, a grin wider than it had been for a while. Nostalgia rushed over her like a wave; there was the park where she climbed that tree two years ago! There was the pizza place where she celebrated her tenth birthday! There was the lake, its surface watery and wet, where she used to play hockey with her friends in Winter's crisp air. There was the road that led to her old house.

Her Sadness nudged a button at that. "Aww, I miss that place," she said. Joy patted her back.

"There, there," she said, "Why do you think we packed our posters? We'll at _least_ make the hotel room look like our old bedroom!"

"Ugh," Disgust said, "I remember the nicest hotel this town had, and - quite frankly - I'd rather be under a bridge."

"Hey!" Anger said as he folded up his newspaper (headline: "BACK AT LAST!"), "Good point. Ask pops where we're staying."

Disgust nodded, and gently nudged a switch.

"So..." Riley said hesitantly, dreading every hotel she'd seen in town (none of them exactly looked like five-star inns), "Where... uh... where are we staying?"

"Hang on, Monkey..." her dad said enigmatically.

She was confused.

Fear returned, adjusting a fresh bowtie he'd put on. "Alright, what'd I miss? Sorry about the wait," he said, walking to the controls with the others.

"Dad's being... weird," Disgust said. The others faintly nodded in agreement. Even Joy wore a confused expression. Fear nervously eyed the screen, then gasped.

"That's the last hotel! We just passed the last hotel!"

Sure enough, the car turned off the highway, leaving the busy street behind. That hotel vanished into the distance with it.

"How do you know?" Anger asked.

"It's only been a year; trust me, I haven't forgotten this place yet, and _that_ is the last hotel in town! Are... are we staying in the _car_ the whole trip?!" Fear panicked and slapped a control.

"We're not staying in the car, are we?" Riley nervously asked.

"What?" her dad asked.

"No, sweetie," her mom laughed.

Riley was about to ask again what they meant, but then heard a beep come from her phone. A new text message. Now, where did she put that thing? She fiddled around, Anger getting more and more impatient the longer Riley had to look in her bag. "Come on, phone!" he shouted, nearly grabbing the controls. Just in time, they saw it, and Anger backed off. Riley picked up the phone. She unlocked it and looked down at the text from Meg:

 _Hi! ^^_

Riley was confused. She quickly typed in, "What? Srry, confused." with a puzzled emoticon.

 _Beep._

 _Look out ur window, silly!_

Riley's head jerked up.

The car was pulling into Meg's driveway. There, on the front porch, was her friend, waving excitedly and grinning ear-to-ear.

Emotional lightning struck Riley, and she was numb for a second, even as her dad pulled to a stop and shut the car off. Her fried brain tried putting two and two together as she saw her father get out of the car. He was chuckling as Meg's own dad walked out. The bigger, bulkier man gave him his signature heavy-handed smack on the back. "Long time, no see, man!" he said with a grin.

She looked at her mom, who just got done hugging Meg's mom. "Did you know?" Meg's mom said.

"I had no clue! He didn't tell me until we got to town! How have you been?"

"How have _you_ been? Oh, here, let's help you with your bags..."

They were giggling and laughing as they walked around to the back of the car.

 _Tap-tap-tap._ Riley looked out her window. There was Meg, face pressed up against it and still waving her arm like a helicopter blade. Riley unbuckled and got out, still uncertain as to what was happening. "What... what's..." she said.

"You're staying with us all week!" Meg said excitedly.

Riley's eyes jolted fully open again.

Inside her head, all the emotions were awestruck. Joy, of course, was the first to do anything.

"Oh my gosh! We're staying at Meg's for the week?!" she squealed. She leapt in the air and landed on top of the control panel. The bubbly little creature then started doing a happy jig. She pressed every button she possibly could, smiling uncontrollably. More gold orbs rolled in.

"Uh... m-maybe you should get off the-" Sadness suggested, but Joy jumped over her head and raced over to the puzzle pieces that made up Riley's daydreams.

"We can play tag, go hang at the hockey rink, ride bikes... Ooh! Is that one place with the slushies still open?! Please say it is! Oh my gosh, we _need_ one of those now! And we can watch that new movie, and go hang out at the oh my gosh this is gonna be so fun!" Joy came racing back with an overflowing mound of those little pieces clenched in her arms, spilling out and trailing behind her. She dumped them unceremoniously onto the floor and began picking them up and putting them in.

Sadness noted that Mom, Dad, and the others were unloading the bags, and it would be mean if Riley didn't offer a helping hand. She gently prodded her in that direction.

So it was that, as they unpacked and got settled, Riley and Meg were shooting ideas back and forth constantly, thinking about how they'd wind up spending that week.


	2. Sadness

San Francisco's blue sky enveloped the city below while the sun gazed down like a giant eye. It wasn't a giant eye - of course - so it really couldn't gaze, but if it was (and if it squinted hard enough), perhaps it would have seen three kids walking and laughing and talking to each-other. There wasn't anything particularly attention-getting about them: one was an average-looking girl with blue hair ties and a matching blue shirt on. Beside her, a boy of oriental-American descent had his hands in his hoodie, cracking a joke about his messy black hair (or, rather, comparing it to his other friend's even messier hair). The third friend blushed, insisting that his cap went well with that red mop above his eyes. It earned a snort from the girl, and a laugh from the hoodie-clad boy.

"Really, H," the brown-haired one insisted, "It's a _style_ , man!"

"Is that what you call it?" the girl asked.

"Yes," the boy said in a matter-of-fact tone, "Yes, actually."

And so the trio continued on their journey, gently mocking each other, their laughter echoing off the buildings and sidewalks and passing cars. Slowly, their path took them further and further from the city's busy center and down to a quiet neighborhood. They rounded a corner and walked up to a house, one of many in a row. Their smiles faded slowly, each one thinking of the same exact thing: how long it would be before they got to come here again.

The messy-haired kid pushed his friend forward. "Go on, Jacob," he said, "You ring it."

"Hey, why me?" he asked.

"Because you're here the most."

"But... well, so?"

"So..." he said, adjusting his hoodie, "Riley's dad is... y'know... scary."

"Scary?" scoffed the girl with an incredulous grin.

"Yes, _scary_. Okay, not the _scariest_ thing I've seen in my life, but... but he's still _scary!_ "

"Oh, you're telling _me!_ I-" the red head began.

 _Ding-Dong!_

The two boys froze and spun around. The blue-clad girl had rung the bell for them, her smile bearing a slight hint of arrogance. They both hurried up the stairs, so as not to appear like they were dawdling behind out of intimidation or anything even remotely like that. They stopped behind their door-ringing companion, H adjusting his hoodie and Jacob pulling his cap back into place. _Click_ went the handle. Everyone looked up. The door opened to reveal Mrs. Andersen on the other side, suitcase in her free hand. The boys' shoulders relaxed notably; while Mr. Andersen always seemed intimidating to them (a towering giant of authority) Riley's decidedly _not_ scary mother was always disarming in appearance and not frightening in the least. She smiled and greeted the girl. "Hey there, Mary! You here to see Riley before we go, I take it?"

"Yeah, but it's not just me, Mrs. Andersen," Mary said, gesturing to the two behind her. They sheepishly waved as Riley's mom greeted them by name. After some minor pleasantries, she led them in and they followed her through the dining room, up the stairs, and up to Riley's closed door (adorned with pictures, posters, and drawings, signs of her life here in town). Many of the pictures had the trio that had arrived, goofing off and having fun with their friend from Minnesota.

Mrs. Andersen knocked. "Riley," she said, "You've got company!"

If Riley heard her, she didn't say anything. Her mom wore a puzzled look, then quietly opened the door and peeked in. The confusion evaporated as she saw Riley on the ground, drawing on some paper and listening to music loud enough for bits and pieces to leak out of the headphones. Her mom made a move to tap her on the back and let her know that her friends were here, but then stopped. A mischievous grin spread across her face as she recalled the game Riley constantly played with her friends. She stepped back, then made an 'after you' gesture to the three conspirators, who smirked in delight as they crept into their unsuspecting victim's room.

Their natural leader, the messy-haired Asian-American boy, gestured for the other two to take up positions on either side of Riley, while he crept up behind her, standing just to the left so that one step would move him into her line of sight. The group barely contained their giggles (not that such a noise would be heard over Riley's headphones), and Riley's mom had a struggle to not laugh as well.

"Alright, thanks again, see you later," came her dad's voice. He walked by whistling a tune to himself as he hung up his phone then pocketed it. The sight in the room caused him to stop and do a double-take. Just as quickly as he was caught off guard, he understood what was going on. He, too, was aware of the little game the four played. He set down his suitcase long enough to watch the prank unfold, sparing a second to wave at Jacob. Jacob's smile briefly flickered, but he waved back, then quickly looked away and at his black-haired friend.

Said friend mouthed, "Ready?"

Jacob nodded.

"Ready?" to Mary.

Mary nodded.

H threw up his hands, three fingers held up on each... Then two fingers... then one...

" _Hi Riley!"_ all three shouted, suddenly jerking into her field of vision. Riley screamed and jumped back, pencil flying away. She stood frozen and caught her breath for a second as her wide eyes looked at the other three in her room. Just as quickly, her face broke into a grinning laugh as she said, "You guys stink!" They all came together for a group hug as Riley's Mom and Dad, still laughing, closed the door and left them alone.

Inside Riley's head, Joy was cracking up, supporting a panting, nearly-fainted Fear. "There, there," she said between chuckles, "It was just a joke, Fear."

"Y-Y-Yeah..." Fear said, eyes wide, "A j- a joke... heh."

"Not very funny," Anger muttered.

"Anger, Disgust, help this poor guy to the couch," Joy requested. The other two did exactly that as she continued, "I believe I'm needed."

She hummed happily to herself, cracked her knuckles, and put an idea bulb in.

Riley's eyes glanced over to the board game she'd been saving for this moment. She had bought it a while back, but the four of them never were in the same place at the same time (except school), so it was nearly impossible to ever play _Apples to Apples_ , but now they had a chance! Before...

Before...

Sadness sighed heavily, her elbows resting against a lever as she recalled a memory: Dad letting Riley know that they'd be spending the last week of summer vacation back in Minnesota. It was a happy memory, but - given the circumstance - Riley felt a twinge of Sadness; she wouldn't see her Californian friends that entire time! Joy bit her tongue, wanting _so badly_ to correct Sadness. She kept her peace, though. _'Calm down,'_ she thought _, 'This is fine, it's okay... just hang on... calm down... don't do anything...'_ But her sugar-coated instinct was kicking in, and had a second longer gone by, she might have shoved Sadness off to the side.

"Riley, you okay?" asked the hoodied boy, arms in his pockets once more.

Just then the blue emotion moved back on her own volition. Joy breathed out a thankful sigh and then pressed a button.

"Yeah, H, I'm fine," Riley said, "Hey, you guys wanna play this?" she asked, running over to the board game and giving it a shake. Everyone agreed readily, much to Riley's (and Joy's) relief. They got to the floor, opened the box, shuffled, and dealt out the cards. They were there for an hour, at least, cracking up and giggling. The time went by minute after hilarity-filled minute, and by the end, not a cheek wasn't burning and not an eye was dry as everyone struggled to breathe normally after laughing so hard.

In Riley's mind, the same could almost be said for her five tiny friends: Joy, of course, was rolling on the floor, while Disgust wore a humorous grin. Anger himself was cackling in glee, and Fear chuckled. Sadness, however, didn't.

She didn't smile or laugh or giggle. She didn't have burning cheeks or worn out breath. No, she was standing there, despondent as usual.

Joy caught her breath, wiped a tear away, and then noticed. "Sadness?" she asked, her smile fading. The others noticed, too, all eyes following Joy's. "Sadness, what's wrong?"

Riley's bedroom door opened. They looked up to see their dad standing in the frame.

"Hey guys, sorry, but it's time to go," he said, "We've still got some packing to do, and we've got to cover _quite_ a distance before we get to our hotel tonight."

"Awww," came the response from Riley, her friends, and her Joy.

"I know, I know," he said, "I'll, uh... I'll give you a few minutes to pack the game up." The door shut with a soft _click_.

"Well," Mary said, "darn."

Jacob nodded in agreement.

H began picking up his cards, and the others followed. Soon, the box was back to the way it was, nestled under Riley's bed. One by one, she hugged her friends and said goodbye. Was it a little rushed? Yes, but Riley felt a hot wave hit her heart, and she knew right where the heat would travel; into her tear ducts. She did _not_ want her friends to see her break down and cry, so the farewells were a little briefer than usual. She led them downstairs, said goodbye as they walked back down the street, shut the door behind them, and then darted right back up to her room.

"Fear..." Sadness said quietly, "R-Remember what we talked... talked about earlier..." When the time had come to say goodbye, Sadness started pressing buttons. Once that happened, Fear had leapt off the couch and into action. He'd darted over to the core memories and took out one in particular, a shimmering blue ball of Sadness, with Riley crying in its center - that time in class, nearly half a year ago. He then had let it float up in the air (his purple hand prints briefly staining it) as Riley remembered the day she cried in class. Then it was off to the races; her purple friend had worked overtime, coaxing Riley to get farewells done in a timely fashion... you know, before the water works could heat up to full power.

Now that it was done, though, Fear was frozen at the console, hesitant to let go. Even after checking to make sure her parents weren't near, Riley was weary of crying.

"Fear," Joy said, gently pulling him away, "I think... I think it's time to... well..." she gestured at Sadness, and Fear reluctantly let his hands go limp. They all backed away, sitting down on the couch to let the teardrop-shaped emotion do her necessary job.

She began by pulling a lever.

The console reacted with a blue glow, and a corresponding little marble came into existence, joining its golden sisters on the shelves. Riley breathed heavily, and then cried. The salty tears trickled out of her eyes as if they were broken pipes. She flopped onto her bed. Quickly, the girl grabbed her pillow and buried her face deep within. Sobs shook her body, purging all the built-up raindrops from her eyelids.

Sadness recalled memories, all of them filtered blue. Riley thought about all the missed chances she'd had so far to hang out with her friends, all the lost opportunities... and how this summer was gone, never to return. By the time she got back to San Francisco, school would start again, and that meant less time to be with her friends, and - certainly - less time to hang out all day. There it went, gone like the tears in her pillow.

Slowly, quietly, the blue emotion let the lever return to its resting position. Riley's sobbing chugged to an eventual stop. She lifted up her head and looked at her pillow, covered in spittle, snot, and tears.

"Oh my gosh, seriously, Sadness?!" Disgust exclaimed. She wasted no time in nudging her aside to take over. Riley gagged a little and pushed the pillow back, contemplating how gross that was. "Sorry about that," Disgust said, "But it had to be done."

"No, it's okay... I-I'm finished, anyways," said her little blue friend, a faint smile confirming her sincerity. Almost inaudibly, she added, "Riley needed it."

Riley sighed and stared at the empty room's walls, just so recently filled with laughter, followed by muffled sobs.

 _Beep._

She looked down at her phone. It was a text from H.

 _You gonna be ok? :(_

Joy and Sadness looked at each other, each wondering whether the other should act. It was Sadness who first stepped back with a nod.

Joy smiled and stepped up.

Riley sent a response immediately.

 _Yeah! :) C u guys n a week!_


	3. Fear

Riley Andersen paused, looking intently at the grape-flavored bottle of soda in front of her. Its purple contents were tempting her, begging her to choose them over the disgusting, slimy looking competitors. She looked at it, then down to the bag of chips she'd already grabbed, then back to the soda. Decisions, decisions. The sugary drink's fizzy liquid looked enticing, to be sure, but there was something about it...

She squinted, her mental gears jammed in an indecisive deadlock. In her mind, Joy was arguing with Disgust. Again.

"I'm telling you," the glowing yellow one said, "It is perfectly fine!"

"No, it's not, Joy! That stuff looks like car sickness in a bottle!"

"You're overreacting!" Joy scoffed, "Sadness, back me up on this."

The pudgy blue emotion didn't hear her, her eyes glistening as she kept staring up at the screen, tapping a button over and over and over again. Riley was hungry, and thirsty, and this would likely be the last gas station for the day (Dad was intent on making it to Minnesota before the night came).

"See? Look at that face!" Joy insisted, hugging Sadness. She quickly grabbed the blue emotion's squishy cheeks and rotated her face towards Disgust. Her watering eyes were looking right through the green emotion, off into space somewhere. Sadness was running on autopilot, and her tiny hand kept pressing the button.

Disgust bit her lip. Those puppy dog eyes were working... and she hated it! No, Riley wouldn't go hungry, but she wouldn't fill up at the cost of food poisoning, either! "Uh, look, Sadness," she explained, "We can just grab a... uh..." Riley looked around, her eyes locking in on "A water bottle!"

The almost-twelve year old set the grape soda back down on the shelf and instead grabbed the water.

"See?" Disgust said, "Safe."

Joy groaned, throwing her arms down to her sides. She couldn't argue with Disgust, but she sure wished she could. Folding her arms, she looked back at Anger and Fear, who were seated on the couch, sharing the newspaper (headlines: "DAD FINALLY STOPS FOR A RESTROOM BREAK!" and, below that: "creepy lady used restroom ahead of us (story on page 3A)"). Too absorbed in the text, they didn't hear Joy. She rolled her eyes and whistled. Anger moved the paper down.

"What?" he asked with a hint of snappiness.

"Well, what's your vote?" Joy asked.

"Hey, hold on!" Disgust said, "This is _not_ a democracy!"

Her protests went unheard. "What's your vote? Boring ol' water... or..." the yellow figure pressed a button. Tucking the chips under her arm, Riley picked up the grape soda again, and held it next to the bottled water for comparison. "...Some delicious grape soda?"

"Ooh, Soda sounds nice..." Fear said with a smile.

Anger looked back to the newspaper. "She can grab booze for all I care, if it'll get us outta this place and back on the road sooner."

"Ew!" Disgust spat.

Joy was more focused on the second half of Anger's sentence. "We just got out of the car!"

"Yeah," the red emotion shrugged.

"You've been complaining for the last few hours!"

"Yeah, but this gas station smells bad." Anger explained. Behind Joy's incredulous figure, Disgust nodded.

Joy scoffed. Anger ignored her. "Alright, so, _anyways_ , Fear, you said grape soda, right?"

"Uh... yeah. Yeah!" He said with a smile.

"I can't believe this," Disgust complained. She held her hands up and stood back from the console. "Okay, but don't come crying to me when things go sour."

"Yes!" Joy exclaimed, then shoved a lever forward. Riley smiled, chose the soda, and put the water back, then walked up to the counter where her mom and dad were waiting. After the snacks were bought and the gas paid for, the family walked out to their yellow car. Riley was the first in. She shut the door, ripped open the chip bag, and began munching away on the delicious goodness. Joy lit up her console, and Sadness retracted her now numb finger, smiling quaintly.

"Alright!" came her dad's voice, "Ready to go, monkey?"

"Ye-" Riley began, but then Disgust intervened.

"No!" she said, "You may have gotten us that gross gas station junk, but I will _not_ let us talk with our mouth full!

Realizing that her mouth was filled with the chewed remnants of chips, Riley swallowed, _then_ said, "Yeah!" as happily as usual.

"Alright," her father replied. The car rumbled to life, and they began driving out of the parking lot.

In Riley's head, Anger thought of something. He considered it a moment, then shrugged and hopped off the couch. His little legs carried him to the control panel, and he flipped a switch, expression deadpan.

"How much longer?" Riley asked.

"Oh, about... four or five more hours," her father said.

 _Everyone_ in her head groaned. "Five hours?" Sadness whined, "Oh nooo, we'll probably have to use the restroom again!"

"Great! Just great!" Anger snarled.

"Oh, and Riley," her mother said, interrupting the emotional complaints.

"Yes?"

"Don't forget your seatbelt," came the reply, a singsong voice accompanied by a knowing raising of her eyebrows.

"Ah! We almost forgot!" cried Fear. He shoved the others aside and pushed a button. Riley's eyes widened slightly, and she quickly clicked the belt into place. Fear sighed. "Okay, disaster averted!" he said through a grin.

"Oh, please," said Anger, "Mom and Dad are always hounding us about that kinda stuff. Seriously, as uneventful as this road trip has been so far, you'd think-"

A semi-truck screamed passed, inches from the car.

Instantaneously, Fear screamed in horror and slammed his fist down on the button. His hands then shot out and seized the levers. They yanked them all the way back with as much force as the scrawny little guy could muster (which, when frightened, was quite a surprising amount).

Everything happened at once, nearly in slow motion, and - if they didn't know better - the emotions might have thought Fear had the controls to Riley's parents as well. Riley's Dad slammed on the brakes, stopping them from going to the highway as his wife dug her hands into her armrests. The roaring behemoth of a truck exploded past, its body a sixteen-wheeled bullet.

And Fear kept clutching the controls. Riley was _not_ gonna die, _not_ on his watch!

Adrenaline pumped through her veins, and she felt her arms instinctively drop everything and shove her back into the car's soft seat. Her eyes wide with terror, her body stiff, Riley Andersen screamed. The world seemed to explode around her for a moment, everything blown out of proportion as the scene unfolded more.

Fear didn't let go, even after the truck passed down the road and the coast was clear. He didn't register the other emotions talking to him. All he could do was focus on Riley. She looked forward, at the front of their car. No damage. She looked down. Seatbelt was on. Thank goodness. She looked at her parents. They were still catching their breaths after the sudden scare, but were otherwise alright.

"You okay, Riley?" her mom asked.

Tentatively, she nodded in response.

"Calm down, there, Fear, calm down, we're safe now..." Joy said. The purple guy gulped, eyes still wide in shock. Trembling, he let the happier emotion guide him away from the console.

"Uh, Sadness?" Joy asked, "Could you help him make some of that tea?"

The shorter emotion nodded and led her friend (whose mind wasn't quite back yet) to his tea supply. Quietly, she whispered back to Joy, "Riley needs something, too..."

Joy nodded, then pressed a button. She noted that Fear's influence still lingered, its purple hue dangling behind for a solid minute after the jumpy guy had left. That was quite the scare; a vibrant purple memory orb had been made, but it didn't roll out like most others. No, it shot out like a bullet and got caught in the projector's floating grasp. The memory was replaying over and over again, like a broken, skipping record: the car nearly getting hit by that big, scary semi truck.

Joy talked to Riley as if she could hear her. "Easy now," she said, "Easy... go ahead... drink it slowly..."

Riley unscrewed the plastic bottle's top, which opened with a satisfying _hiss_ , and began gently drinking down the cool purple liquid, happy for its soothing effects. The family returned to the highway, and - minute by minute - the drink's and Joy's combined influence made Fear's terrifying purple fade from the control panel. The memory soon got dislodged, dropping to the floor. Disgust placed it on its appropriate shelf.

"Th-Th-Thanks Sadness," Fear said as he walked back in. Sadness guided him to the couch as he slurped some tea, still a little fidgety, but notably calmer than he was. He looked up at Joy, "And thanks, too, by the way. F-For making Riley c-calm down..."

Joy smiled and winked, and looked at the others. Everyone was still a little shell-shocked from their close encounter. Mustering up her near-bottomless reserve of happiness, Joy declared, "Hey, guys! I got a great idea to get our minds off of that!" she raced over and pulled out a lightbulb. "Who's up for the alphabet game?" she asked.

...

Well, nobody said "No," so that meant they were okay with it, right? Right!

Joy plugged it in, and Riley grinned at the idea. She shared it with her parents, who quickly agreed (perhaps they, too, wanted a distraction from that frightening split-second). "Alright..." she said, "I see an 'A'! Right there on that license plate; A113!" She smiled with triumph as the little blue car went by.

"Okay..." her mom said, eyes squinting, "I see... B! On that toy store sign!"

Her dad found a "C" on the next license plate.

Riley found a "D" advertising a new Disney movie.

And so the game went on, everyone's nerves slowly returning to a soothed state.


	4. Disgust

The grass below Riley Andersen's feet was green. That's what she noticed as she stared down at it, like a miniature forest beneath her. It would be relaxing, peaceful even, under any other circumstance - but the situation was anything but peaceful. She incredulously noted that less than five minutes ago, she was happily playing that stupid alphabet game with her mom and dad as they traveled down the highway...

"I see a 'U' on that sign!" her mom quickly pointed out, before the green square had the chance to pass them, "exit 314 - Buffalo!"

"Ahh! Beat me to it!" Riley giggled, "I was literally _just_ about to say that!"

"Gonna have to be quicker than that!" her mother playfully taunted. Riley shoved her gaze out the window at that. The gantlet had been thrown down. _'Challenge accepted!'_ Her steeled gaze peering down the highway. She scoured the horizon for _anything_ at all, determined to be the next to call a letter out. _'Okay, V,'_ she thought to herself, _'V... V... V...'_ she searched and searched, but her confidence was short lived. As time ticked by, not a single license plate produced the elusive letter, and no sign came by to give it to her.

All she saw for miles was the endless North Dakotan scenery, their car continuing East. There was a signpost. Next to it, a tree. They just passed a bridge. But not a single letter V came out of hiding to give her a chance, all there was was the big blue sky, the nearly-endless highway, and that dead animal.

Riley did a double-take.

Yep, she'd seen it, and if her eyes deceived her, the disgusted groan of her mom and the shift of dad swerving aside most certainly did not deceive her: that was a nice big slice of road pizza, looking as stomach-churning as broccoli... maybe even moreso. She couldn't tell what that twisted, heaping mass of fur even used to be. It had clearly been hit by a car - its corpse was by the side of the road, tongue dangling out and dead eyes staring into nothing, its head twisted around to an impossible angle. Beneath it its innards had burst out like the contents of spilled spaghetti. A black cloud of flies was furiously encircling it, dense enough for some to splatter against Riley's window as the car passed.

"Ewww! Ew ew ew eeeww!" Disgust squealed in her head. The little green thing was hopping up and down, eyes squinted nearly shut and one hand up against her mouth (the other was busy tapping the nearest button). "Oh my gosh, did you guys see its tongue! So gross! So _gross!_ "

"That poor thing had its head almost completely snapped off..." Sadness groaned.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it _please_ don't remind me!" Disgust hissed.

"We could've been like that just half an hour ago!" Fear said, nearly spilling his tea as his fingers sniped a button on the panel.

"Wow, you're right!" Sadness whimpered in agreement, cringing back from the monitor.

"No, no, no, guys! Please, just take it easy..." Joy said, "Look, you're gonna make Disgust sick!"

It was true; the poor green emotion literally had her hands full. Both palms were now slammed over her mouth, puffing up her cheeks as much as her swollen green eyes were widened (which only served to punctuate how tiny her pupils had shrunk). _'Calm down, calm down, Disgust...'_ she thought to herself. _'Breathe in, breathe out... it's all gone...'_

Her eyes caught a glimpse of Anger's newspaper, complete with a giant photograph of the dead animal carcass. Anger himself even jerked his head back from the sight, one eye growing larger than the other. Disgust looked away, slamming her eyelids shut.

Riley did the same, moving her head away from the window where the flies had become so many little snot-colored splatters. _'Gross!'_ she thought as her stomach briefly tightened.

"You gonna be okay?" Joy asked, putting a concerned hand on her shoulder.

"Do you need your bucket?" Sadness offered.

"No, I'm..." Disgust exhaled, then swallowed and forced that nauseating feeling to vanish. She adjusted her dress, her scarf, and her hair, then - with what she hoped was a dignified, dainty air - said, "I'm fine."

"Oh, good," Sadness said with relief, leaning on the console, "Cause now we've got a _biiig_ stomach pain, and it almost feels like we're gonna throw-"

Joy slammed a hand over Sadness's mouth. "Sadness!" she said, "Not helping!"

Sadness looked up into Joy's face. "Oh... sorry," she said, only the golden hand blocking her converted it to " _Mwh... smfhff."_

But it was too late. Disgust twitched an eye, frozen solid. She spread her hands out. "No, calm down... calm..." she said to herself. All eyes went up to the monitor.

It felt as if an iron hand grabbed Riley's stomach and squeezed it completely shut. Her tissue sent a ripping, tightening pain up her entire abdomen. She doubled over, knees up to her chest and eyes closed tight.

"N-Nope. Nope!" Disgust said, pressing a button, "It's happening."

"Aaah!" Fear squealed, grabbing Disgust by the shoulders and looking her in the eye, "Please tell me we're not gonna hurl in the _car! What if we distract Dad and he crashes and we die?!_ _"_

Sadness began bawling. Joy groaned and slammed her hands into her face. The situation was _quickly_ spiraling out of control. Sadness yanked a lever, reacting to the vice that had seized Riley's gut. But the brief blue flicker was soon gone, replaced entirely by a nauseating green tidal wave. Disgust had sprawled across the console's surface, clutching her own gut and groaning.

"D-Di.. uh, Disgust... I just... I need to..." Fear timidly said, but his little green friend kept rolling back and forth, lighting up the controls in more green. Fear stuttered and stammered, and looked over to the monitor. He could feel it, too, now; Riley was seconds away from losing her lunch... or, well, her gas station snack, but still! The purple emotion quickly whispered, "Sorry," then shoved Disgust aside. He gave a lever a good yank.

"Stop the car!" Riley shouted (perhaps a bit too loudly, but this was an emergency), "I'm gonna throw up!"

 _Screech!_ the brakes squealed.

 _Click!_ went the seatbelt.

 _Slam!_ went the car door, and Riley was there, standing by the roadside, staring down at that forest of green grass below her feet.

In her head, Disgust was just getting up, eyebrows still collapsed into a grimace. "Ugh..." she groaned.

"Uh... uh..." Joy panicked. She didn't want Riley to throw up. But more than that (though she'd never admit it) she didn't want to hear what Disgust would say about picking that suspicious-looking grape soda over the safer water at the gas station. She looked at Sadness. "Sadness! Say something to, uh, I don't know, make Disgust feel better!"

Before she could protest, Sadness was scooted up next to her currently nauseated friend. At the same time, the shadow of Riley's parents appeared on either side of their daughter.

"Easy, now, Monkey, easy..." her father's soothing voice said.

Sadness hesitantly placed a calming hand on Disgust's back and patted. "Uh... It's gone now, isn't it, at least?" she tried, "I mean... oh... oh that's so sad..." her eyes had trailed off to the screen, where Riley noticed a colony of little blue ants carrying the corpse of a dying grasshopper to their mound. Disgust noticed, too. Her body twisted over again, stomach tighter than ever as she slammed her face into the console, lighting up the surface in a sickly green glow.

"B-B-Bucket! Now!" she cried out.

"Okay!" Sadness said with a smile. She turned and let her little legs carry her off. She was happy to be so helpful.

"What... what should-" Joy began, but was interrupted by a bitter laugh.

"Sorry, Joy," Disgust said, "But we've gotta get this out of our system!"

With that, a curled green fist slammed into a button, and the inevitable happened. The grass, anthill, ants, and grasshopper were all drowned in a nauseating sea of mushy purple slime, former contents of Riley's stomach. It made a sickening wet sound, like a dozen wet rags smacking the sidewalk.

The deed done, Riley gratefully accepted a bottle of water from her mother, and - when she'd rinsed her mouth out and wiped her face clean - she paused to see if she felt any better. It only took a second, and the nausea passed away. "Okay," she said, "I'm fine now. Sorry about that."

"It's okay, sweetie," her mom said.

"Can't blame ya, yuck!" her father added, wiping away the last of those dead flies from her window with some napkins, "But I thought monkeys liked bugs, especially to eat 'em."

His attempt at humor was met with a nervous chuckle from Riley and a brief glare from her mom. Still, all was well. They hopped back in the car, and were back to driving again.

Inside Riley's head, Anger had been kicked off the couch to make room for Disgust's sprawled figure. Her bucket was full (all that needs to be said on the matter), and here eyes were half-closed after the strain of the incident finally faded. As she looked up to Joy standing nearby, she couldn't help but raise her eyebrows in an "I-told-you-so" stare.

Joy looked down at the ground and sighed, hands behind her back. Disgust was right, of course. Even without the aided help of that roadkill, Riley would've soon gotten carsick from that cheap-looking gas station soda; the brand that always made them a little queasy. She should've let Disgust do her job. She let her controlling nature get the better of her. Again.

And Riley suffered for it.

Disgust noticed Joy's slouched shoulders and frowning demeanor. The green feeling looked down at the floor, considering something, then bit her lip. She nodded to herself, whispered, "Okay," then cleared her throat and got Joy's attention. "Hey, uh... where... where were we on the alphabet game?" the green emotion asked with a smile.

Joy faintly smiled in reply, but sorrow still lingered.

Disgust decided she felt well enough to sit up again, so she did just that. "I bet I can beat you!" she said, "I bet I find the V before you do!"

"You wish!" Joy exclaimed, her signature brightness returning

"You're on!" said Disgust.

Joy raced back over to the console, eager to beat Disgust and be the first to point out the next letter.

"Now, where were we?" Riley asked tauntingly.

Her mother took a moment to ponder it. "I think we were on-"

"V!" Riley shouted eagerly, pointing at a passing Sedan, "2N _V_ NBN! Hah! Score another one for me!"

Her mother scoffed playfully. "I didn't know we were taking score."

"We are now, old lady!"

"Ouch!" chuckled Mr. Andersen.

"Oh... it's on, in that case!" his wife said to their daughter.

Riley laughed and then went back to looking out the window. _'The next one is mine!'_ she thought, excited and happy once more.


	5. Anger

The traffic light stayed red for what felt like a short eternity, glaring at the Andersen's car. The little crimson light was being spiteful (if that were possible), intentionally delaying the time until it changed green, forcing Riley and her family to go through the torturous wait as the other cars freely crossed the road.

"Come on!" Anger complained in Riley's head, "Just turn green, you stupid red piece of _junk_!"

Disgust scoffed humorously at that. "I never thought I'd hear those words come from _your_ mouth."

"Well, congrats, there's a first for everything!" the little red emotion snapped.

"Now, Anger, come on... look on the bright side-" began Joy.

"Oh, don't worry; I _am_ looking on the bright side!" he replied in mock cheerfulness, a fake smile slapped on his face.

"Oh, good!" Joy chirped. The sarcasm went soaring over her head.

"Yeah! In fact, I bet we'll be the first in the world!"

"First in the world to do what?"

"First in the world to _die waiting at a traffic light!_ " The fake happiness was gone, replaced by a scowl as he shoved a button roughly. Riley sighed to herself in frustration.

"Oh n-n-no! I hope not!" Fear squeaked.

"It's called sarcasm, genius," Disgust said with a sideways glance.

Fear furrowed his brows at her. "I knew that," he said defensively.

"You did?" Sadness mumbled with a shrug. "'Cause it looked to me like you were a little sad that Riley might die..."

Fear made a move to protest, then stopped as his brain failed to concoct a good comeback. He slouched over and sighed in dejection. "Okay," he said, "Yes. You're right."

"Hey, come on guys..." Joy said, trying her best to keep the atmosphere light and springy, "Let's not jump to negativity _too_ quickly here."

"And why not?!" Anger snapped, "I swear, if that light doesn't-"

The light turned green.

"Finally!" Anger declared as the car began moving. He left the console (though not before tapping another button in a parting shot) and returned to his newspaper, grumbling something under his breath about "...not being paid enough for this..." as he threw himself onto the sofa.

"Aaaand we're off!" Joy said happily, "See? It wasn't that bad!"

She got a "Hmph!" from Anger.

Riley sighed in relief. The city outside was moving by once more. Maybe they were _finally_ on their way out of San Francisco! Then it would be a smooth ride to Minnesota to see her old friends and enjoy the last of Summer vacation. As the scenery moved past, the eleven year old reflected on how her first school year in California had gone. Apart from that fairly rough start (she cringed slightly as she remembered the "runaway" incident), things had gone well. She'd passed with A's and B's, found a group of friends at school, and even managed to keep practicing hockey... though she wasn't yet on an official team (a fact she intended to change when she tried out for the Foghorns in a month or two). She smiled. Really, it had been a good year and a good move. Nothing could ruin her spirits.

"Oh, come on!" her dad groaned as the car slowed to a stop. Riley shook her head as reality poked its ugly face into her daydreaming. She looked up ahead. What she saw thoroughly burst her bubble: they were in a traffic jam - a big, fat traffic jam.

For as far as the eye could see, a sea of cars was locked up in a frozen grid. A cacophony of horns and yelling, shouting people blasted through the air. The dismally grey sky wasn't helping matters. Riley slouched back into her seat. A bored sigh sputtered through her lips.

Joy herself even groaned. "A traffic jam?!" she said incredulously, arms gesturing to the screen. "But we were just moving!"

"Yes, yes we were," Anger said. He furiously crunched the newspaper into a ball, then stood up on the couch. One eye closed, one eye open, he hurled the wad of paper across the room and right onto the console. It bounced off a button and the surface burned red.

"Oh, nice shot..." Sadness's voice was unheard beneath the _stomp_ of Anger's feet hitting the ground. The little red cube marched right over to the console, shooing Joy out of the way.

"Now, excuse me, but I believe Riley's got some steam to let off."

"O-Oh, please, Anger, please!" Fear dove down and wrapped his arms around the little red guy's legs, "Please don't do anything to get Mom and Dad mad at us again! Please!"

"Scram!" Anger spat. Fear scampered away. "I'm not gonna get us in trouble!" the hotheaded figure continued, "But we aren't just gonna sit here and fume away while this traffic bores us to death!"

Riley found a gum wrapper lying near her. She took great pleasure in pretending it was the traffic jam, with all its horrible little cars blocking them and all the needlessly angry people behind them. She ripped it apart, bit by bit, until it was nothing but a pile of paper snowflakes. She angrily blew it, and a little blizzard was formed as it got caught in the air conditioner's path. She took a moment to take in the little spectacle, then giggled. Bending down, she picked up the pieces and blew them again.

Inside, Joy was manning the console once more. "Thank you for that, Anger!" she merrily said, "I knew you could come up with fun things to do if you just tried!"

He scoffed. "Whatever," he mumbled, then folded his arms across his chest and watched on as Riley kept blowing those little pieces of paper around, over and over and over again...

And over again...

And over again...

Anger tapped his foot, looked at his nonexistent watch, then glanced at Joy. "Joy-" he and Disgust said at once.

They exchanged looks, then said, "I-" Again, at the same time.

Anger groaned and slapped his face. Disgust quickly spoke up. "Joy, I think this is just making the traffic jam more _boring!_ "

"Seriously?" Joy asked, her smile so forced that even Fear wasn't fooled by it.

"Seriously," Anger said, "We appreciate the effort, but - look - just drop the act already. We know you're not any more entertained by this than us."

"Oh, come on, I... I..." Joy tried, but then her breath deflated out like a balloon and she sagged forward, arms limp. "Okay, yes. Yes, I'm bored. Riley's bored. We're all bored." The usually chipper emotion briskly walked over to the couch and flopped down across it, face buried in an armrest.

Everyone else took a second to observe the sight then dismiss it just as quickly.

"You got this?" Disgust asked Anger, gesturing to the monitor.

"Actually," Anger explained, "I was just about to ask you the same-"

At that moment, he heard a cuss word. No, two- No, _three!_ Three cuss words in a row. Normally, Fear would've made Riley plug her ears (especially if it were mom or dad being unusually upset), or Anger would have reveled in adding to Riley's stockpile of ammunition (assuming Fear would ever permit him to use it), but for a second, Sadness shoved a switch forward. "They're saying that at us!" she said.

Riley turned around.

An angry motorcyclist on a red bike was right behind them, spewing a variety of expletives that were simultaneously creative and simple-minded. Riley's eyes widened, she whimpered, then looked right back ahead, hoping not to provoke the helmeted man any further. About that time, her dad rolled down the window and leaned out it. He turned around and yelled, "Hey, jerk! My kid can hear you! Watch it!"

That was about as efficient as kicking a hornet's nest. The cyclist revved up his profanity count right away.

In Riley's head, Fear was still gripping the controls. His twig of a body was horizontal as Anger strained to pull him off, holding his feet in a death grip. "No!" Anger shouted, "No more! This jerk's yelling at Riley now! He's gonna get it! He's _so_ gonna get it!"

"B-B-But he's scary and what if he's on the run from the cops and what if he grabs us and rips off our mouth I heard bikers can do that and-"

" _Get off!_ " Anger roared, flames erupting from his head. Fear's feet caught on fire, and he was forced to let go. The little stick of an emotion screamed and ran around, pain encircling his little legs. Joy jumped up.

"Hang on! Calm down, I'll get the extinguisher!"

While Joy was off trying to tend to Fear, Sadness and Disgust looked briefly at eachother, then at Anger, then backed away, hiding behind the couch.

Anger ripped his tie off.

"So," he said, "Is _that_ what Riley is, huh?! Is that what you think Riley is?! Well, how about-"

"Riley?" her mom said urgently, "Riley, put on your headphones, now."

Riley's scowl didn't leave as she jerked them up and slammed them on, cranking the hardest rock song in her library to full blast.

The explosive guitar riffs flooded HQ, but that didn't matter. Anger could still feel it. He could _feel_ that bike-riding punk drilling his gaze into Riley and letting out a nice big burst of swear words like missiles. Sadness inwardly thanked Riley's mom for making her put on headphones to drown out the angry man, both because he was hurting Riley's feelings awfully (tears were already built up behind Sadness's eyes like dams ready to burst) _and_ because she didn't want to hear what Anger was saying.

The music was drowning him out, but if his gestures were any indication, he was as furious as he'd ever been. He grabbed the tie and made a "strangling" gesture with it, head still on fire as he screamed his lungs out. He then proceeded to throw the tie down and step on it before kicking it across the floor. He bent down and picked up his wadded up paper, ripping it to shreds and pointing at the screen, where Riley was looking back at the cussing driver. If looks could kill, the man would have been missing his face.

Anger kept going.

As he ranted and raved, he picked up the paper shreds and set them on top of his head, then ignited it once more, taking great pleasure in burning them up. He ripped off one of his shoes, and started smacking the console with it. Said console was now a blistering red city of buttons and levers. Anger threw his shoe across the room (incidentally hitting Fear in the face and knocking him out).

In a climax that was equal parts spectacular and horrifying, Anger leapt up onto the console, seized a lever, then yanked it back and forth until the tip of it snapped off, sending the emotion tumbling off the surface and onto the ground.

He popped up.

"Anger!" Joy scolded. The music had been turned down enough for normal conversation again.

"What?!" he snapped.

"Look at Fear!"

"Look at that creep!" Anger said, pointing to the screen. "I am _not_ gonna let Riley sit there and take this!"

"Maybe-" Sadness offered.

"No!" snapped her red peer. He marched back around to the console and dangled a stiff finger over it, deliberately eyeing Joy, as if daring her to protest.

"Don't!" she said sternly.

Anger lowered his finger closer.

"Don't you dare!" Joy snarled.

Closer.

"Anger, if you make Riley make that _rude_ sign that H told us about, Mom and Dad will-"

Anger pressed the button quickly. Everyone's mouths dropped open in scandalized shock.

Riley put on the most withering glare she could muster, then snarled and eyed the motorcyclist. She pulled down her eyelid, exposing the red, slim skin underneath. At the same time, she stuck out her tongue and blew a raspberry at the man.*

Her parents might have noticed, if not for the police sirens suddenly erupting in the distance. Two cops on motorbikes were driving swiftly down the lines of traffic, their red-and-blue lights splashing the immediate area in their angry tones. The motorbike man muttered one last profanity under his breath, revved his engines, then darted away _well_ over the speed limit. The cops shot past seconds later, leaving Riley's family quietly sitting in the car once more.

Riley had shut down her music, and was currently sighing in relief.

In her head, Joy was just finishing her scolding. "...and if Mom and Dad saw that, they would have grounded us, and that means we wouldn't have had fun when we got to Minnesota!"

"He had it coming," Anger said flatly, turning a page in his new newspaper. "Besides, it says here that we're moving again." He looked up at Joy. "Don't you think you're needed at the console?"

"But- I-..." Joy spun around. Sure enough, the traffic jam had cleared up. "Oh... Oh!" she said. Her smile grew back, and she pressed a button. It was as if the whole incident had never occurred. Riley listened to her music, this time at a reasonable volume, and happily hummed along to herself. The rest of the trip was without a single traffic jam. But that wasn't the best part of the day.

The best part was watching the biker (who had clearly been knocked off his motorcycle) get picked up by the biggest, strongest man she'd seen in her life. _'Serves you right for being a big jerk,'_ she thought as their car went past the scene.

The last she saw of the criminal, he was being taken and cuffed by the cops as they caught up to the scene and took him off the big guy's hands.

* * *

* This gesture is known as "Akanbe," and (while not _quite_ as bad as the more commonly used finger gesture) is considered either childish or incredibly rude in Japanese culture, depending on the situation.


	6. Bittersweetness

HQ was unusually quiet. The ever-present shuffling of Anger's newspaper had died off. Fear had stopped sipping his tea long ago. Disgust was no longer fiddling around with her makeup. Joy's accordion sat unused in the back of the room. Not even a faint sniffle from Sadness broke the silence that had drowned the whole room. It was all so quiet, and not one emotion dared be the first to break the sacred peace that had swallowed Riley's mind.

Anger and Disgust sat on the couch, eyes locked on to the monitor and warm smiles on their faces. Sadness stood across from them, her short arms resting on her chest as a glow warmed her. Above and behind the blue figure was Fear's toothy grin. It wasn't nervous in the slightest - a rare sight. At the control panel, arms spread out as she leaned forward and took it all in, Joy was entranced.

Oh, sure, this wasn't the _happiest_ day in Riley's life (at least, Joy hoped it wasn't (though she did endeavor to make each day the best so far)). That award would probably go to her graduation, or perhaps when she found her future husband, or - no, wait - when they started a family in Canada... no, no, no, all those were great, but the best day of Riley's life would have to be when she had a child of her own... and next to that, or maybe just a teeny tiny bit ahead of it, would be the day Riley became the first to play hockey on the moon (it's really cold up there, you know; perfect for hosting a hockey game)... oh, Joy didn't know, but - right now - she didn't care. All she cared about was soaking up the golden light as memories of Riley's visit to Minnesota came back. Joy recalled them one after the other, and everyone was silent in appreciation. There was the one where she and Meg were playing tag with some of her other old friends. There was Riley being introduced to the new girl who had joined up the hockey team (who quickly became another friend in Riley's book). There was the memory of them going to see that movie that was playing, the one with the balloons. It wasn't one of the best ones Riley had seen, but it wasn't too bad, either. Besides, what made it even more enjoyable was the company she was with; her parents, Meg, Meg's parents, and several friends she'd sorely missed for almost a year.

It had been a good week.

Riley was sitting on Meg's front porch, as the two drank slushies from their favorite fast food place. As Meg slurped on her Lemon Explosion, Riley was busy drinking a Blueberry Bomb. The two were enjoying their drinks in the somewhat chilly morning air, but that didn't particularly matter to them. They sat in quiet silence, reflecting on the memories they'd made over the past week as Riley's family stayed with Meg's. The adults were inside, finishing up packing and having another one of their long-winded discussions that adults always seem to love so much. Hence Riley and Meg waiting outside.

Pausing, Meg looked up at Riley and asked, "So, are you ready to go back? To your school in San Francisco, I mean?"

Riley stopped drinking and considered it for a second. "Yeah, I guess. I mean, sure I am. Not that I didn't like it here, or anything!"

Meg laughed, "Oh, yeah, I know, I was just curious is all. I mean, we talked about how things have been here all week, but you didn't bring up California yet. What's it like over there? I mean, besides what you've already said in your texts and stuff."

"Oh, well, not that different from here, really. I mean, the school's bigger, and so are the buildings and the city, but... really, not a lot is different."

"What's the hockey team's name again?"

"The Foghorns," Riley said, "Mary's on their team."

"Is she the one you showed me the picture of, with the pony tails?"

"Yeah, that's her. She's pretty good, but I think she's too hard on herself sometimes."

Meg suppressed a laugh. Riley cast a confused glance in her direction.

"What?" she asked, perhaps a little defensive on Mary's part.

"She gets too hard on herself? Now, hmm... why does that sound familiar?"

"Oh shut up!" Riley said with a laugh, "I'm getting better about that!"

The two giggled a bit more. After the laughter died down, quiet smiles were left behind. Meg was the one who first spoke again.

"So are you gonna tryout for them this year?"

"Oh, yes! Definitely. I think I have a much better shot this time around." Her smile faltered only for a second as she remembered her temper tantrum nearly a year ago, when she had made quite a scene at the hockey rink, days after the move. She shook her head, and the smile was back. "Yeah, I'll let you know if I make it!"

"That would be awesome! I'll keep my fingers crossed for you."

"Thanks."

And it became quiet once more, both on the outside and the inside. Gradually, Riley's smile faded away, replaced with a deep, contemplative look. Sadness had taken up the controls next to Joy, and - though Joy had stepped back to allow her peer room to work - the blue teardrop-shaped feeling detected some sorrow flickering out from her usually bright and cheerful friend. Joy was feeling sad. A glance confirmed it; those half-closed, sunken eyes couldn't mean anything else. She would have asked what was bothering her, but there was no need. She was feeling it, and Riley was feeling it.

Meg noticed her friend's forlorn look, and tried cheering her up. "Hey, let me know if you run into any cute boys at your hockey games!"

Riley chuckled at that, "Okay, sure, I'll keep that in mind, Meg." Her laughter, though short lived, was genuine. Meg, somehow, seemed to constantly know the right thing to say to make Riley feel better. Joy had pressed a button, and was smiling once more, glad that there was something to distract Riley from the goodbye that was almost certainly coming soon...

Too soon, in fact; all four adults stepped out of the house, and the laughter came to a close. Once more, Riley's dad became the harbinger of bad news. "Alright, Riley," he said, "Sorry, but it's time to go. We have a long ways to go to the hotel we booked for tonight."

Joy let go of the controls and sighed heavily. Sadness stepped forward and nudged a switch.

"Okay," Riley said, resigned to her fate.

All throughout their goodbyes, she managed to put on a happy facade, but it wasn't genuine; Riley wished she could stay longer with Meg and revisit more of her hometown, but she also knew that it was no use. Life had to move on, and that meant saying goodbye once more. Minutes later, they were on the road and still waving at Meg's family as they receded to dots on the horizon, then vanished behind a curve in the road.

Riley sighed again, and stared down at the floor beneath her feet. Her mother noticed. "Hey," she said, "You alright?"

"Yeah..." Riley explained, "I just... I wish we could stay longer, that's all."

"Me, too," Mr. Andersen added, "but we've got to go back home, Monkey."

Riley despondently nodded.

"And besides," her mom added with a smile, "I'm sure your friends are missing you."

Inside Riley's head, all eyes looked to the screen at that. Joy looked into it, as if she were considering something. She walked forward as one in a trance, and gently pressed a button. Riley smiled as she thought about them. Yes, her friends back in San Francisco were probably missing her. Heck, they'd gone a whole week without her! The thought made Riley feel a bit sad... but not too much; she also felt happy to be returning and seeing them again. And, as far as her visit with Meg was concerned, yes - she was sad to be leaving Minnesota once more - but she couldn't help but smile at all the happy memories she'd made with Meg. She'd simply have to visit again next year. That's all there was to it.

Inside her head, Joy was beaming at the monitor, the only thing in existence to her. No, HQ didn't exist in her eyes. All she saw was the screen above, with Mom's smiling face as Riley talked about the trip and what she liked most about it. The waves of memories were returning again. Joy furrowed her eyebrows at them; they weren't golden anymore - each was partially tinged with a deep blue hue, akin to a LemonBerry Blast slushie. Joy blinked, then looked down to see Sadness at the controls, leaning on a button. The gold emotion jerked her hands back, fearing that she'd become controlling again. She quickly began firing out an apology, "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry! Sorry, Sadness! I didn't mean to-"

"No, you're alright," Sadness said. She placed a hand on Joy's arm, to clam her down, "I... I think that's what was supposed to happen. I think we're supposed to feel happy and sad."

Joy looked down at her friend, and they exchanged smiles again before returning to work. Riley was feeling joyful at returning home, and was eager to tell her friends all about the trip, but she felt sad that they must have missed her, and even more sad that it would be a while before she could see Meg in person once more... but, above all else, Riley Andersen felt content. It was a good week, and she felt ready to make next week even better.


	7. Excitement

The sound of laughing people was a veritable jungle of noise at the theme park. Everywhere, families and friends were walking in a churning mass of thrill seekers and fun lovers (and the occasional grandparent reluctant to go but shanghaied into it by grandchildren). Among the people, one family of three was working their way down the concrete sidewalk, smiles adorning their faces. The mother's grin was hidden beneath some silly gold-and-purple facepaint, the father's was masked by a BBQ coating (remnants of lunch). But neither smile could even begin to compete with that of Riley Andersen, thoroughly enjoying her first Spring Break in this new State.

"...and I can't believe how weird that hall of mirrors was! You had such a _big_ head, Dad!"

He wiped the remains of that barbecue sandwich from his mouth before replying, "Yes, and you know what? I'm glad it looked like that. Now I know how you feel, Monkey."

Riley playfully shoved her Dad aside in mock anger - not that she was doing a good job at pretending to be mad; the feeling usually wasn't manifested by a grin and giggling. Inside her head, unsurprisingly, Joy was at the console, doing her best impression of Anger and earning a laugh from everyone else, save the red brick himself. "Oh, come on, lighten up," Joy whined through a laugh (and facepaint matching Mrs. Andersen's - the brightest emotion had somehow managed to get her hands on a variety of theme park memorabilia. _How_ she did it nobody bothered to ask).

A gruff noise broke from Anger's lips as he folded his arms.

"I-It was pretty accurate," Fear chuckled, patting his red coworker on the back, "Come on, you gotta admit-"

"Don't touch me unless you want another burn."

The point was well taken; Fear jerked his hand away. But - even had Anger not spoken - Fear would've done so: up on screen, Riley's family was approaching a clown. The purple emotion whimpered. He darted over to the controls tapped a button. Riley took notice of the big, red-nosed figure, and smoothly let her pace fall back until she was securely hidden behind her parents. The family passed the clown without incident, and all five emotions breathed a sigh of relief. Well, except Joy.

"Oh, Fear, really. We can't overcome our f-fear of clowns if we keep on hiding from them..." she only sounded half-confident.

"Yes, but no, Joy. Not here - not in an unsafe environment!" Fear declared, one finger raised in the air.

"You know, maybe Joy's right..." Sadness half-mumbled, "Because we might- we might as well overcome it... other kids aren't scared..."

"No! No, no, no, no, no!" Fear insisted, "Other kids can get themselves killed by some makeup-wearing psycho who's always smiling, but Riley? No thank you!"

"Oh, okay..." Sadness said, backing shyly away.

"Fear, seriously," Joy complained, her shoulders slouching so far over that she was nearly half her normal height, "No need to be a kill-... uh... no need to be such a spoilsport!"

"Oh, we've been having fun, right?!" he nervously smiled. Awkward silence, save a cricket chirping. Fear scowled and looked over at Joy, who had a cheap little purple plastic toy (also something Riley had won at an arcade game) that imitated a cricket's chirping. She looked up and stopped, then pocketed the item.

"Seriously, though, come onnn!" Joy begged, "Let's... y'know, actually do something besides walk around and play arcade games!"

"But those are fun, right?!" Fear asked defensively.

"There aren't very many..." Sadness complained.

"Okay, I see your point," Fear said to her, "But there's more than that we've done! The facepaint-"

"Is fine for mom, not for us," Disgust interjected, "She's allowed to look that ridiculous, because adults just _are_ , but us?" A scoff flickered in. "No thanks. Sorry."

"Well, yeah," Fear admitted, "But we can walk and get some exercise, right?"

"It's hot out, and our legs are getting tired," Anger snapped, "Any more of this and I'm gonna push that button myself! Let's get on a _ride_ , darn it!"

Fear looked at Joy's big, watery, begging eyes. It came off less as sympathetic and more as annoying, which did the trick just as well. "Fine, fine, fine," Fear said, "Let's look at what rides we have."

Joy squealed in delight, gave Fear a painfully tight (but mercifully brief) hug, and shoved a lightbulb in (she'd been saving it ever since they walked into the amusement park). "Hey!" Fear said, scurrying up to her, "What's the big idea? You can't just-"

"Too late!" Joy said.

"Hey!" Riley suggested to her parents, "I... I wanna try the Zurg Rush!" she gestured up to the tall, imposing roller coaster, whose dominating silhouette could be seen from anywhere the park. In its center, a giant purple figure with yellow eyes and teeth scowled down at the parkgoers in disdain. An exciting, intimidating sight if there ever was one.

And Riley's heart was pounding from merely looking at it.

"Take it out! Take it out! Take it out!" Fear screamed, gripping the lightbulb and doing his best to unscrew it. All he succeeded in doing was nudging a few buttons, creating a few faintly purple memories, and exhausting himself. That idea was in, and definitely _not_ coming out. "Please, Riley!" Fear dropped to his knees, clasping his hands together, "Please reconsider it!"

"Too late!" Joy sang as she skipped across to the center of the controls. She cracked her knuckles, "The idea's in, and there's no stopping it!"

"B-but... but you could stop it if you wanted, right Joy?" Fear suggested.

"But I don't want to," the gold emotion flatly responded.

Fear whined and slammed his head into his palms. Mentally, he began creating a list of things Riley should include in her will. She'd scream them at her parents as the roller coaster took off so they'd be sure to get it right. All the while, Riley was in line, bursting at the seams with excitement while her mother held her hand and her father (who firmly but politely declined the invitation to join, saying he'd wait for them) smiled and waved. The line was - admittedly - long, to the eleven-year-old's moderate annoyance, but she'd live with it.

Inside her head, while Anger gently nudged a lever, Fear was collapsed on the sofa, crying in terror while Sadness handed him tissue after tissue. Joy sat nearby, trying her best to calm him down. "Oooh, hey, look!" she said, pointing at a sign posted in the coaster's waiting area, "Here's a neat bit of trivia for you, Fear! It says the ride was built only a few months after the rights to the franchise were purchased by Lucasfi-"

"We're gonna die!" Fear squealed. He bit his fingertips in worry, "Joy, we're gonna die and it's all because of me!"

"Oh, now stop saying that," Joy said, putting on her best smile, "It's not because of you."

"Wait- we _are_ gonna die?" Sadness's voice squeaked, shocked.

"No! No, that's _not_ what I- I didn't..." It was Joy's turn to groan and slam her head into her hands as Sadness, too, collapsed into tears (yet still didn't break her near-automated handing of tissues to Fear). She fell sideways onto the couch and bonked her head against Fear's. If either felt pain, they didn't register it. They were too busy bawling their eyes out at the prospect of Riley dying. Joy moaned in frustration and gave up, deciding the two would dry up eventually. So she walked over to Anger.

"How's it going?" she deadpanned.

"Well, some punk just tried to cut us, but Mom gave him 'the look' and the little brat shriveled up and walked back to the back of the line. Apart from the heat, the smell, and the long wait, we're doing just terrific!"

"Good!" Joy beamed, genuine.

"Yeah, sure," Anger said, "Call me if you need me again."

As Joy contemplated whether Anger was being sarcastic or serious, the brick walked back to the sofa, newspaper in hand. He gruffly sat between Fear and Sadness and began to read, trying his best to ignore their waterworks as they leaned on him like a pillow. He flipped to the "Forecast" section and began scanning an article about the long wait ahead. Riley didn't like it, of course, but the small bits of trivia posted all around were enough to distract her, and she managed to remain happy throughout the whole wait (which, in retrospect, wasn't very long at all). In the end, she found herself and her mother situated in a violet, two-person roller coaster car with lightning streaks running down its sides.

This was it.

Fear and Sadness had stopped their crying by then. Sadness, of course, had realized Riley wasn't going to die, but Fear wasn't too sure. He'd stopped because of the image on screen; the Zurg Rush began moving, with _Riley in the front car!_ All of Fear's instincts took over, and he jumped up. His little legs carried him over to Joy's side, and he pressed a button. "Stop it! Stop the car!" he screamed, "You've gotta stop it now!" But his efforts were in vain; Joy, too, had her hand on a button and was refusing to let up. "Joy, stop!" Fear cried, "Stop, we need to get Riley off!"

"Too late!" she said, "The ride's starting, and you don't want Riley to be embarrassed by asking the attendants to stop it, do you?"

"No! No, of course not!" Fear said defensively, "But... But-" his helpless eyes took in the sight on the screen as the ride approached the first drop, slowly, steadily. A miniature eternity swallowed up the time between the start of the ride and the ride's _official_ start. Riley's trilling heart only beat faster with each passing second. Fear gripped Joy's arm and was trying to pry her off, but the more he tried, the more she resisted, going so far as to push him to the side. Her stubborn grin matched Riley's tooth-for-tooth.

 _'You can't! You can't!'_ Fear mentally hollered, _'We'll be a red splat on the sidewalk when this is over!'_

He looked over at the levers. Joy didn't have them! Maybe he could still save Riley!

He ran up to their protruding figures and gripped them each tightly. He looked to the monitor.

The horizon greeted him; they were at the peak of the coaster, not even a foot from dropping! Slowly, the world began rotating up as the coaster started inching forward...

 _All at once, the ground was in front of them (seemingly miles below their dangling hair) and the sky was behind them!_ Fear screamed and yanked the levers all the way back, his throat bellowing his voice out at top volume. Joy slammed the button hard enough to feel a tremble of pain, but she didn't care. She was grinning ear-to-nonexistent-ear.

A vibrant purple-and-yellow memory popped into existence, and Riley screamed in delightful terror as the roller coaster took off like a bullet.


	8. Curiosity

It was another average day in San Francisco; an average hour on an average street, where an average house rested among others. Up in the house - behind a plain, bare door - Riley Andersen lay on her bed, feeling sick to her stomach.

Weary-eyed, the poor little girl turned over and sighed. San Francisco wasn't setting a very good impression on her so far. First there was the time she cried in class, then she had to go home in the dark of night after nearly running away, and now - a mere week later - she was sick, and her parents were busy. Dad was at work, of course (so much was usual), and Mom had to run and increasingly large list of errands. Among her list of items to do was now "pick up medicine for Riley"; the eleven-year-old had a cold. It was a nasty one, but a cold nonetheless, and that meant it would be over soon enough with the right medicine.

But soon enough wasn't soon enough for her. She turned over again and groaned, her throat feeling muffled and drowned in mucus. It made her want to gag.

 _'Oh, come on,'_ she thought to herself with a frown, _'It's just a cold. Don't be so selfish... there are people way worse off...'_

"Oh no..." Sadness's voice moaned. In HQ, the blue emotion was up front once more. Her hands had lit up the console in blue. She'd made Riley feel guilty over nothing again. Sadness put her tiny palms up against her cheeks, saying, "I didn't mean to make her think that! Oh, poor Riley... Poor us..."

An explosive, nasty cough came from the back of the room. Joy's voice followed with, "Sorry Fear." But it wasn't the clear, crisp tone that Joy usually adopted. Her short apology came out, "Soddy Feah," and was punctuated by another pitiful gag.

"...poor Joy," Sadness concluded, glancing over at the gold emotion. Normally so bright and happy, Joy was reduced to the same state as Riley. Not that this was unusual; whenever Riley felt sick, Joy usually was hit with it as well, and there wasn't a single thing that could be done about it - save waiting until Riley felt better (though there was the odd occasion where Joy felt back in shape ahead of time. This allowed Riley a few extra golden memories during her ordeals).

Fear, bless him, was doing his best to be helpful. "N-N-No worries, Joy, uh... H-Hang on..." he quickly got down to the ground where the tea he'd offered Joy was now spilled. Disgust handed Fear some rags she always seemed to have on hand.

"Okay," she said from behind her doctor's mask (as she adjusted her rubber gloves (and hair net (and grabbed some disinfectant spray))), "Just have Anger burn those things when you're done. They touched the floor, which touched the tea, which Joy coughed on, and I - for one - do _not_ want to catch this cold."

"I really don't think that's how it works," Sadness said, "Joy's the only one who gets sick when Riley gets sick..."

Disgust rolled her eyes, "Better safe than sorry!" she exclaimed, "And besides, _who_ did Joy say should be in charge when Riley's sick?"

"You," Sadness conceded.

"Me," Disgust replied. She spared one more empathetic glance at Joy (who meekly smiled as another cup of tea was handed to her) before walking up to the console. "So," she said to Sadness, "What are we doing now?"

"Feeling awful," Sadness replied, "And I think Riley just gagged on some mucus because-"

"Ew!" Disgust winced, flicking a switch. Riley's nose wrinkled. Then her eyes widened; she just hacked up some mucus, and there it was - resting in her mouth like a slimy ball of snot! In her head, Disgust's eyes had doubled in size, expression a picture-perfect reflection of Riley's. "Oh my gosh! No! No no no no nonononono!" She grabbed the levers, and yanked them all the way back.

Repulsed (to say the least), Riley moved out of bed as quickly as her groggy body allowed her, then went down the stairs, half her brain focused on walking, the other half focused on that gross puddle of slime on her tongue. She made it to the kitchen, locked onto the sink, darted over, and spat. She made sure to close her eyes, not wanting to see that gross sight. She flicked on the sink and allowed the water to send it down the drain. Then, grabbing a cup of water, she gargled and spat out the residue that had clung to her tongue.

It was all over in seconds. Riley shuddered.

"Disaster averted," Disgust said, sighing in relief. A twinge of sarcasm rode her voice, though, as she added, "Now all we've gotta do is clean our room, do our homework, call Meg, take our medicine, and generally make sure we're not falling behind at all so that we're not laughingstocks at school. No problem."

"Oh, is that all?" Sadness said hopefully.

"Well, I think I missed a few things, but-"

But Disgust didn't get a chance to finish. In spite of the dead weight of being sick, Joy exclaimed brightly, "Oooh! Look! Look at that box!" All eyes went to the monitor as Riley's eyes went to a box resting on the kitchen table.

It was a simple box, nothing remarkable about its gold-and-green surface. It had some company name on it that Riley failed to recognize, and it was about the size of one of those boring adult books. But what really caught Riley's attention was her name, written in sharpie across its side.

For the space of a second, nothing happened, but Joy immediately downed the rest of the tea in one gulp and jumped off the couch, stopping right beside Disgust (who jerked back and away from the yellow emotion) at the console. "Let's open it!" Joy said.

"No, Joy!" Disgust chided, "We certainly should _not_."

"Oh, but-" A cough. Joy's sickness had caught up to her, "But why? It has our name on it!"

"That's not good enough!" Disgust explained, "Riley is above that! What if we're not supposed to open it yet? What if Mom and Dad got us this as a surprise? And besides, who's in charge while you're sick?"

"But I'm not-" Joy began, interrupted by an explosive sneeze.

"Oh, gross!" Disgust winced. She took out a tissue, and - keeping it at arms length - passed it to Joy, who graciously accepted it. It wasn't long, though, before the two were back to bickering, and the others could do nothing but watch. Fear didn't intervene for fear of accidentally hitting the console, Anger was too absorbed in the newspaper to bother, and Sadness - while willing to help - was simply too shy to speak up. So it was that Riley Andersen went back and forth, debating whether or not to look at the box and see what was inside. Eventually...

"Not fair!" Disgust screamed, "That is not fair at all!"

"What?" Joy asked in fake surprise as she breathed once more across the console's surface, blowing as much air as she could all around it, spreading her non-existent germs everywhere. "There was dust on it!"

"Ew ew ew ew ewww! You make me sick!" Disgust exclaimed. Sadness chuckled quietly, earning a quick "what's-so-funny" glance from her green peer. The blue emotion sheepishly hid behind her sweater in an attempt to stifle the laugh. Disgust simply rolled her eyes and looked back to Joy. "Look Joy, just-" she began, then gasped in scandalized shock as the gold emotion lunged for a button.

In the split second it took for Joy's hand to make contact, Disgust ran through mental gymnastics, initially wanting to slap Joy's hand away, then realizing how gross it was that Joy was still sick and had breathed all over the console, then admitting that - gross or not - emotions couldn't contract disease from each other, and then finally realizing that she needed to act fast.

Joy's hand and Disgust's hand slammed into the button at once, lighting the console up in a vibrant yellow-and-green swirl as a matching memory came out.

Riley felt - admittedly - pretty eager to see what was in that box with her name on it, and it was with great pleasure that she grabbed some nearby scissors and cut it open. Nonetheless, in the back of her head, she felt slightly appalled at herself for such a thing.

Ah, but it didn't matter! The box was cut now, and there was no use going back. Riley opened it up to satisfy that inquisitive nagging she so suddenly had.


	9. Passion

The Andersen's yellow family vehicle was driving gently down the road between a sleek red sports car and a rusted-up tow truck. Inside, the situation was anything but gentle; it was exciting. Loud music was blasting the speakers, high energy was infecting mother, father, & daughter, and Riley's heart felt like it was on the brink of exploding out of her chest. Her mouth was locked in a bright grin as they continued to head downtown. Their destination? The hockey rink. The occasion? Only the first game of the season! Feet fidgeting, hands shaking, she was practically bursting at the seems with anticipation.

It was hard to imagine that only a year ago she tried out for the Foghorns and royally blew it. The incident had left an impression, and since then she'd religiously practiced every chance she could with her hockey-playing friends after school, working harder and harder at staying in shape and improving her skill set _precisely_ so that her position on the team would be secure when she tried out again. Two weeks ago, she tried out. The next day, she found out that she was in. Now the Foghorns were kicking off their season once more, and _this_ time Riley wasn't relegated to watch from the bleachers. _This_ time, she was going to be in the rink with her Californian friends, ready to take down the competition.

"Hey, what gives?" Anger asked incredulously. He was eyeing the recalled memories dangling just above his head. They were reflections of the past - the failed hockey tryout just a year ago. Once red, the orbs were now coated in new shades of gold. the short red brick shot Joy a look. He demanded explanation. She had none to give but a shrug of her shoulders before she spun quickly back to the console, inputting more emotional influence.

Anger cleared his throat.

Joy sighed. She turned to face Anger, her smile still affixed to her face in spite of her nervousness. "Uh... well... okay, so it's like this; I was up on dream duty just a few weeks ago, and I thought, 'Hey, what _did_ happen to make Riley quit hockey?' I mean, I never asked specifics, and we just never brought it up in conversation before. So anyways I recalled the memories (don't look at me like that, Fear, I didn't interfere with Dream Duty again) and then I guess I felt like touching that one, and I don't know but it must be what Sadness did 'cause it turned gold but you know what I guess that's fine right?" Her rambling terminated in blinking eyes and a chipper smile.

"All that went right over me," Anger shrugged, having failed to process the machine-gunned words that had shot from his friend's mouth, "But as long as it's fine, then fine. Whatever. It'll be nice when we finally get an upgrade to the console and understand more of that stuff."

"I couldn't agree more! So let's-"

She was interrupted by Riley's father. "Alright, here we are!"

Joy squealed in excitement as Riley stepped out of the car, hockey bag in hand, to see the stadium loom up above her. It made her a little nervous, but she breathed in, breathed out, and marched right to where her team was gathered. She caught a glimpse of a few of the opponents, and her heart beat in anxiety, but she forced it down. _'Concentrate,'_ she told herself. She walked up to her team. The coach's brief pep talk brought her spirits back up, and she was happy once more. Head high, smile cemented on her face, Riley Andersen was filled with pure elation as the Foghorns walked down the hall to the rink. _'Oh my gosh, it's happening! It's actually happening!'_ She thought to herself, the mantra repeating in her head as her team emerged into the stadium.

But that's when it stopped. Her spirits shattered and her jaw dropped open at the sight of the crowd. It was a vast monster, crying out in a thousand voiced cacophony. Intimidated didn't even begin to describe the feeling.

In Riley's mind, Fear was in control. The purple twig's eyes were nearly out of their sockets. "Look at all those people!" he cried as his hands remained latched to the levers, "How many is that? We can't work under this pressure! We can't, we just can't! We're gonna mess up! We're gonna lose!" His teeth chattered.

"Come on, Fear, please!" Joy insisted, "This is _not_ what Riley needs right now! We've been ready for this game all of last year, practicing, putting our all into it, making sure we're in perfect shape for this moment!"

It only added pressure, and Fear's grip tightened.

Joy pressed a control, hoping to at least let Riley feel excited (as when she first tried riding a roller coaster), but - alas - it was no use; Fear's influence was too strong, and Joy's flickering yellow sparks were drowned in purple. Riley didn't feel excited. She felt petrified in terror. Even as her team lined up, and the game was about to commence, she couldn't help but feel vulnerable and naked, exposed to the entire world.

"Oh, Fear!" Joy complained, struggling to pry his fingers off, "Good grief, you haven't had a grip this tight since that test last year!"

Had Fear heard her, he may have tightened up even more, but he didn't hear her. He may as well have been a statue, albeit one that was trembling and hyperventilating. Try as she might, Joy couldn't get Fear to loosen up. Disgust struggled to gross him out and make him let go, but he remained. Sadness attempted to calm him down with a few meek words, but nothing happened. In the few seconds before the game commenced, Fear had Riley's mind frozen.

She happened to look up, just in time to notice one of the opposing team members sticking his tongue out at her, making the nastiest face she'd seen in a while.

Fear whimpered, Disgust went slackjawed, Sadness teared up, and Joy scoffed.

But Anger? Well...

"Oh he did _not! He did not just-_ " the red emotion was reading his front page, on an article that said "STUPID PUNK SIGNS DEATH WARRANT." Anger continued with, "He- I swear I just-" A snarl punctuated it as he ripped the paper in half and marched up to the controls. "Fear!" he shouted, jolting Fear back to reality as he looked down at Anger, "If you don't move I'll make you move!"

The purple emotion let go immediately, putting several paces between him and Anger. The brick seized the controls and gave the levers a quick yank. "Alright, Riley," he said, "this little jerk is going down, and _you_ are gonna be the one to take him down!" Riley scowled in determination, then gripped her hockey stick harder, her jaw clenched. The opponent visibly flinched back, clearly not expecting this reaction. "Darn right!" Anger shouted, "You better watch your hide, punk! We are gonna trash your whole team!"

"Oooh!" Joy exclaimed, unable to resist stepping next to Anger. She quickly pressed a button. "Look! There's Mom and Dad!" Joy waved furiously, grinning once more as though they could see her and not Riley. The two smiled and waved, excited for their daughter. Joy looked down at Anger. "Let's make 'em proud!" she declared, giving Anger a friendly slap on the back.

"Let's rip 'em to pieces!" Anger snarled, revving the console like a motorbike.

"Let's give it all we got!" Joy agreed, grabbing another control.

"Ready..."

"Set..."

The game began, and Riley - full of adrenaline - promptly demonstrated to _everyone_ that she was a force to be reckoned with.


	10. Loneliness

When Riley woke up, the first thing she noticed was the sore throat; a burning, painful sensation clawed her esophagus. It felt like she'd breathed sawdust. She painfully moaned as she sat up, rubbing her equally-pained head. Still just as sick as she was all morning. How long had she managed to nap? A look at the clock informed her, and she sighed in frustration. Thirty minutes.

She'd woken up feeling horrible, told her parents, they decided she'd have to stay home, and - thirty minutes later - she still felt as bad as she did when she first took the nap.

On the inside, another red orb burned itself into existence. Anger had pressed a button almost casually as he walked on by, glass of water in one hand, newspaper in the other, and listless expression on his face. He pulled up a spare chair and sat down, unfolding the newspaper. While his angry red eyes skimmed an article about Riley's miserable condition, Joy's groggy voice harshly whispered out, "H-Hey... where's Disgust?"

"At the controls," Anger said without so much as a glance.

"Oh," Joy said. The brief pause was taken up by another cough before she managed to sit up and say, "Hey... hey, Disgust... I-I think I'm feeling good enough to get back to work now... m-maybe..."

"No," the green emotion responded after adjusting her white doctor's mask, "Joy, you are _d_ _efinitely_ not feeling fine."

"Oh, come on..."

"No, Joy, she's right," Sadness said. It was telling that the little blue ball's drone was louder than Joy's broken voice, even from across the room as she walked down from the bedrooms, "I can tell you're feeling awful still."

"Thanks Sadness," Joy sarcastically muttered, then - with a groan - flopped back horizontally onto the couch. They would have moved her to the bedroom, but she _insisted_ that she be present for Riley. What she thought she could do to help Riley when she was just as sick, she didn't know. All she knew was that "Riley could be feeling better any second, and then she'd be happy, and need me!" But after an hour had already passed with no change, everyone in HQ seriously doubted that Riley would be back to well at any point in the day.

So, while Sadness made sure all was well and while Fear offered some soothing tea to Joy, while Disgust (the go-to leader in times like this) managed operations and Anger busied himself in his newspaper, Riley sunk back under her blanket, feeling just plain _sick_.

At that point, her mom entered with even worse news.

"Hey sweetie," she said, walking up to Riley's bed. Her purse was slung over her arm, and Riley sighed again. Whenever Mom had her purse out like that, it meant one thing and one thing only.

"How are you feeling now?" Mrs. Andersen asked, gently stroking the back of Riley's head, "any better?"

Riley shook her head feebly. It was no exaggeration on her part; she was down for the count.

Her mother made a sympathetic frown as she said, "Aww, I'm so sorry to hear that." She, too, sighed and added, "I hate to say this, monkey, but there are some things I've got to get done today, so I'll be gone for a little bit. I'm also going to pick up some medicine for you, okay?"

"Okay," Riley mumbled.

"Alright," her mom said. She faintly smiled, kissed Riley, and then walked out the door. "I've got my cell phone. Call me if you need anything."

"Okay..."

The door shut, and her mom's steps receded away. Inside Riley's head, Sadness was - of course - manning the controls. She was leaning across them, her face squished against the bumpy surface of buttons and levers, lighting them all up in a blue glow of depression. All was quiet while the emotions reflected on the sorry situation. Disgust was lost in thought, her whole body tense with the pressure to keep everything in order while Joy was... well, out of order. In fact, she was so deep in thought that it took the second time for her to feel Sadness's gentle tap.

"Disgust, I think Mom just said something to us from the front door, but we didn't really hear her..."

"Oh, it's probably more stuff about feeling better, which I am _definitely_ focused on." Disgust scoffed and flicked the switch.

"Okay!" Riley called, a small part of her just wishing her mom's goodbyes would be shorter. The front door shut, and Riley was the only one in the house.

The next five minutes were the longest ones she'd had in her life. Tossing and turning on her bed, unable to sleep, uncomfortable awake, half-lost in her cold and filled to the brim with boredom. "Okay!" Anger cried out, "If we're gonna be stuck here alone, let's at _least_ pass the time! I'm sick of doing nothing."

Riley made a frustrated scowl at her situation, and got out of bed. She went to the living room and turned on the TV, hoping for something to relieve her boredom. She flipped through the channels, past a talk show (boring), a hockey game (she wasn't in the mood), and something about a rat in a kitchen (she gagged). Just before she gave up on the TV, a news report caught her eyes. She lingered. It was something about a disease in some country (whose name she couldn't pronounce or remember). Things were apparently pretty bad, with people dying right and left. It was just about to give a death count - something she did _not_ want to hear. She flipped off the TV and looked in her dim reflection. Her saggy eyes looked into her saggy eyes, taking in the sickly features. Her heart beat slightly faster.

Inside, Fear pressed a button. "What if that's us?!" he asked to nobody in particular, "What if we've got that disease?!"

"Ugh, please!" Disgust said in half-confidence, "There's no way it could travel all the way to here-"

"But other diseases do," Sadness said, "They travel all around a-all the time. We learned it in school remember? About the Bu-... uh... Bu-bo-nic... Bubonic Plague..."

Disgust gulped. Sadness didn't notice.

"How it came in on rats and they had gnats and the disease-"

"Stop stop stop!" Disgust screamed, "No! No, I- Ugh! Gross! Sadness!"

"What?" she shyly asked.

"You made me vomit in my _mouth_ , that's what! I'm gonna go brush my teeth _again!_ Ew!" And so complaining and muttering, Disgust briskly made her way to the bathroom.

"S-Sadness..." Fear asked, "You don't think that- heh, I mean... you don't think that could actually happen, do you?"

"Well, yeah, I do," Sadness shrugged, "People die every day and diseases happen every day, so I don't see why Riley couldn't have gotten it, too."

Fear whimpered. "No!" he exclaimed, "That can't be true! That-... No!"

Riley stared deeply into the reflection, worry etching her brows. Fear had control of her. Orb after orb came rolling in. "Fear, do you... do you think you're overreacting again?"

His hands suddenly let go of the console as if it burned him. "Sorry!" he shouted, the slammed his hands over his mouth. He spared Joy an apologetic glance before whispering, "Sorry."

"It's okay..." Sadness said, "Are you... are you alright?"

Fear shook his head. "No, no I'm not... I... I want Mom and Dad back home with us, darn it!" a fist hit the console. "They'd keep us safe, and keep us company! They'd tell us why we wouldn't have to worry about the disease, and... and..."

At a loss for words, the purple emotion simply stared into the monitor with worried eyes. Of all the emotions, Sadness found Fear the easiest to read. It was like a book; the purple guy was terrified, worried for Riley's life because of that news report, worried that this cold would turn out to be something worse, worried that Mom or Dad would get in a car crash, worried about this, worried about that. And it was all for Riley's sake.

Fear's eyes caught a blue gleam beneath him. He looked down. Sadness's hand was on his, and the console was a dance of purple and blue. He looked over at Sadness, who offered a gentle pat on his slouched back. Between them, they guided Riley back to her room, and she curled up beneath her blankets, not crying, but feeling like it as overwhelming loneliness swamped her. In spite of it all, she wasn't alone; Fear and Sadness did their job, and - soon enough - Riley slipped off into a dreamless nap, freeing her from the cold's bullying if only for a moment.


	11. Pity

Riley felt anger - boiling, _blistering_ anger - but before that she felt a twinge of pity. It only lasted a split second, of course, but she felt it nonetheless.

It was the day after her third hockey game with the Foghorns, and Riley Andersen started it out with a spring in her step and a smile on her face. They'd won a whopping four-to-one. It was no contest; they'd completely dominated the rink, and the vibrant glow of victory still clung to her all morning. As she ate her cereal, she remembered the feeling of hitting that puck. As she got dressed for the day, she remembered taking off her helmet after the victory. As she walked to school with her parents, she remembered celebrating with her team afterward, cheers and cries of joyful victory swarming through the air like so many bees.

Inside her head, Joy was still celebrating. Dancing around the console in bliss, she recalled several shining golden (and sometimes red) orbs that Riley replayed over and over in her head. Most of the game was a blur, but these few highlights stood out, telling the full story; There was Riley snatching the puck from an opponent. There she was passing the puck right past another and to a teammate, with perfect form. And (Joy's personal favorite) the sound of the bell as Riley shot the puck down the ice, past the goalie, and into the net.

Joy wasn't the only one celebrating, of course - every emotion was thrilled. _'Sweet Victory'_ blared over the speakers. Anger hummed happily along while reading the sports section. Fear was sitting next to him, reading along eagerly. Even Disgust and Sadness were celebrating. Seated on the ground, Sadness had a wonderful smile while Disgust helped her apply face paint, decorating her blue features to be the Foghorn's colors.

"Hold still..." Disgust was saying, "And... done!" she picked up a mirror and spun it around for Sadness to see. The blue emotion looked into it and made a deep, happy giggle at the sight.

"Thanks," she said.

"Of course," Disgust replied as she began putting away her near-endless supply of cosmetics, "It's not every day you're this happy."

"Yeah, heh," Sadness said, "Usually I just think about how we lost the game, but this time we won!"

"Yeah we did!" Joy called out with a cheer.

As Sadness got to her feet, her eyes trailed off into the distance. "It felt so nice when we won... but..." her smile - like a shy little cat - receded and hid away. A frown took its place. "Too bad for the other team... they did awful... we really let them have it..."

Joy sighed, but didn't say anything else - Sadness was right, of course; somewhere in the back of her head, Riley _did_ feel sorry for the other team... but not nearly enough to stop her from enjoying her victory! The twelve-year-old waved goodbye to her parents and skipped merrily into the school, whistling to herself and high-fiving teammates whom she happened to pass. She slowed her skip to a walk, and rounded the corner to her lockers.

Inside her head, the music stopped. It wasn't a loud, noticeable stop. It was just a stop, as if someone had hit the mute button. Anger's jaw was dangling open, expression matching Fear's as the two stared numbly at the monitor. Joy was frozen, speechless, stunned into disbelief. She blinked and rubbed her eyes, but couldn't think of a thing to say at what she was witnessing. Sadness and Disgust scurried up to the console. They - too - were at a loss for words. The only noise came from the monitor; laughter and mockery.

Riley stood about four feet from a horrible sight.

A towering mountain of a kid stood there, his face locked into a sneer as he chuckled and shoved a shorter boy back. The bully's spiked hair and freckled face was all-too-familiar to Riley. She never knew his name, but she did know that he was always bullying, always looking for a chance to get a kick out of someone else's misery. His current victim? Someone who - after a split second - Riley recognized. She ran into him at the game last night.

His hat was off his head (courtesy of the bully), and he was nearing the point of tears as the bigger kid's meaty hands grabbed his shirt, swallowing the faces of Mike and Sully in an iron-tight grip. "Please, man!" the kid cried out, voice cracking, "Just let me go!" The bully obliged, shoving the kid back and letting him stumble to the ground once more. Another laugh erupted, and some of the passing kids joined in with jeers of their own.

In Riley's mind, Disgust was the first to speak, and she did so with an indignant scoff. "That creep again!" she shouted, dropping her makeup bag, "I am _sick_ of seeing his face around here, picking on everyone! Ugh!" she flipped a switch. Riley made a repulsed scowl.

Sadness was next. "Ohhh, that poor kid..." she moaned. Tears were flowing now, ruining the face paint, but she didn't care in the slightest. Sadness's whole world was suddenly swallowed up as she felt every shove, every mocking word, every harsh laugh that was directed at the poor brown-haired kid. The little ball of an emotion began crying out loud. She shoved past a still-petrified Joy and went next to Disgust, tiny hands gripping the levers and pulling. The console became green-and-blue. Sadness leaned into Disgust as the tears kept flowing. Were it not for the situation, Disgust may have scolded Sadness for smearing makeup on her dress, but as it was, the awful situation had their full attention.

Riley's brows furrowed in pity, but - not even a second later - they shifted. Anger jumped off the couch, crumpled newspaper flung into Fear's lap, and shouted, "Enough!" as he stomped towards the console.


	12. Betrayal

The piece of cardboard paper used to be a simple thing, like a flat blanket of snow lying untouched across the surface of a lake. The perfection of it was wonderful. Untouched.

Then Riley squirted deep blue paint onto it in a blobbish puddle, followed by a glob of red, and began mixing them together in an increasing swirl. The unperturbed sheet was no more; it was now the canvas of an eleven-year-old's heart (a heart which was up in the clouds, miles away). She smiled enthusiastically as she went to work, the paintbrush never leaving the paper for even a second as it skated across its surface. Time seemed to smear and blend like those two colors did, and - as the crimson and blue smears gradually took on a violet hue - time allowed the picture of a heart to emerge from Riley's swirling.

It was perfect.

Riley paused a moment to admire her work, then quickly yanked her head up and looked to her bedroom door. It was still locked. She glanced at her phone. Thirty minutes until she had to leave for school. She sighed in relief, though her cheeks still nervously burned, and put some final touches on her work, this time with some other, less bold colors, addressing it to one "Jameson Berker." While the paint dried, Riley let her thoughts wander blissfully, daydreaming about the brown-haired boy she occasionally passed in the halls.

That would be Joy's doing, by the way.

Mirroring her girl exactly, Joy was sprawled across the console, legs rocking listlessly back and forth in the air while she examined her own cardboard paper (or, rather, _papers_ , four of them). She - too - admired her handiwork, a paintbrush sticking out from behind smiling white teeth. Splotches of paint were all over her face and hands... and - Fear noted as he approached the console - even her hair.

"You really shouldn't be encouraging Riley to be so... bold!" Fear muttered, tapping a button. He then turned around and kept pacing back and forth, to the couch, then to the console, then to the couch, then to the console, as he had been for the past half hour (making sure to press a button each time he approached the controls... it was the least he could do, what with Joy currently activating so many as she used the console as her own personal art studio).

"Mmhmm..." Joy replied, clearly not listening.

"What if Jameson doesn't like it?!" Fear asks, "What if he thinks we're being obnoxious?"

Another purple button press.

Another non-response from Joy.

Another frustrated groan from Fear. "You're not listening." Joy's lack of reply confirmed as much. Fear slapped himself in the face and then walked back to the couch, sitting down grumpily. He bothered himself with a quick look at Anger's newspaper. "VALENTINE'S DAY IS HERE!" it said. _'No, really?'_ Fear thought to himself. He'd tried convincing Anger that the card was a bad idea, but the red brick told him he was being too wound up over something that wasn't as bad as he thought it was (though he didn't put it quite so eloquently). Fear also knew it was useless to bother Disgust or Sadness over it. While Disgust was busy picking out the perfect clothes for Riley to wear, Sadness was trying to come up with a list of apologies should things turn south. Then, to top it all off, once they were done with their tasks, the two became entranced by a golden memory Joy had recalled, which was currently playing on loop: Jameson accidentally bumping into Riley in the hall, then picking up her papers that had fallen. It was like hypnosis for them; there they were, inches from the monitor, staring right at the looping memory as if it were the most wonderful thing in the world.

And, of course, Fear tried talking Joy out of it, but she wasn't listening.

In the end, the most say Fear had was the occasional splotch of purple on one of the yellow orbs (a steady stream had begun rolling in). He sighed in frustration.

"Done!" Joy shouted.

Fear yelped.

His gold peer leapt from the console and darted around the room. She chucked whatever it was she'd been working on at her four friends; a piece of cardboard paper bumped Sadness's glasses, another landed in Disgust's hair, another interrupted Anger's reading, and a final one smacked Fear in the face. Each was accompanied by a rapid-fire "Happy Valentine's Day!" from Joy.

Fear looked down at the Valentine's Day card he'd received:

 _"Happy Valentine's Day!"_  
 _"I love you all!"_

 _"-Joy"_

 _"Also, PS: sorry about the 'Core Memory' thing!"_

 _"-Joy"_

 _"PS PS - I really really mean it."_

 _"PS PS PPS - I mean that I mean both things - Love you all, and still sorry about the Core Memory accident. Just so we're clear."_  
 _"Okay, thanks. That's all. Happy Valentine's Day!"_

 _"-Joy"_

Fear - try as he might - couldn't stay upset with Joy. He even managed to smile through his anxieties as he picked up the candy that was taped to the card.

She _always_ got enthusiastic about holidays, and this was no exception. Besides, it was so many months later, and yet she was still a little shaken up from the core memory thing. Once in a while the lightbulb of an emotion would get into these moods where she felt the need to "make up for it." She'd done that ten times over, and then some, by that point. But that didn't change how dead-set she occasionally was to make things better. Other than that, it was just like any other Valentine's Day, really.

Well, almost. The only other difference being that Riley actually had a crush... which made Fear worry. A shudder rolled down his spine.

* * *

At school, the tensionous atmosphere was only multiplied. There they were, surrounded by a sea of lovestruck, drama-filled peers, some with friends, some with those they considered more than friends, and all of them with their intrusive eyes on Riley. At least, that's how _she_ felt. That's how Fear felt. "Slow down! We're walking too fast, Joy!"

Fear reached forward and grabbed the levers, pulling them back as much as possible with Joy's forceful pushing. Not mad, but clearly eager, Joy offered an "Oh, come on, Fear!" in response. He didn't care.

"No, Joy, seriously! We go too fast, we'll bump into someone or trip them or-or- draw attention to ourselves!" Joy looked like she wasn't buying it, so Fear used a lifeline. "Disgust, come on, back me up on this!"

"He's right, Joy," the green one confirmed (though she still had a smile), "Just... calm down a little; we'll get to Jameson soon enough, and-"

"There he is!" Sadness said.

But nobody looked at the monitor. Instead, they all turned to look at their little blue friend. Her voice had cracked when she spoke, and now tears were gathering in her eyes. Disgust's smile was gone.

"Oh my gosh, Sadness, are you okay?" Joy asked, running over to her.

Sadness managed to keep her trembling hand pointed right at the monitor. "J-Just look!" she sobbed, melting into a puddle of tears. Finally, everyone looked up and felt a heavy blow. There was Jameson, exchanging Valentine's Day cards with another girl! Not just any other girl, mind you, but Hannah - with her oh-so-perfect green emerald eyes and perfectly-brushed hair and witty humor and bright smile, and... and... and by the looks on their faces and the way they were holding hands...

Riley couldn't compete with that.

It felt like the world locked up, frozen. Riley nearly dropped her card as she went slack-jawed, brain unable to process what it was she was seeing. And when she finally did, Sadness was up at the controls, crying, while Joy moped back to the couch, numb eyes staring in shock at nothing in particular. Fear looked to Joy, then to the console, then to Joy, then to the console...

He ran over and pressed a button. Riley, realizing she was about to tear up in public, went to the restroom, kept her composure until she was alone in a stall, then let her eyelids break like dams, tears erupting out. Content that the situation was under control (or, as much as it could be), Fear and Disgust went to Joy's side. She, too, was struggling to keep it all together. This whole... fixation... on Jameson was her doing. That's how she saw it, anyway. So she felt that Jameson being with another girl was somehow _her_ fault, and that the pain Riley was feeling was somehow brought on by Joy's influence. Fear and Disgust both knew that wasn't even remotely true, so - doing their best to fill in for Sadness (who was obviously occupied) - they attempted to soothe their golden friend.

Meanwhile, Anger hadn't moved. His eyes were still aimed at the monitor.

If looks could kill.

Anger threw down his paper and crushed it on the floor, like a bug. He glared at it for a while, staring at its brand-new headline: "STABBED IN THE BACK!" He gritted his teeth, breathed in, breathed out, and muttered something under his breath, something that he probably would've been scolded for could anyone else hear it. But they couldn't. So that's that. He repeated it quietly, just to let off some steam, before wadding up the paper and kicking it across the room.

"Joy worked so hard..." he said to himself, taking brisk steps up to the console's blue light, "Disgust and Sadness were looking forward to it... Fear tried to warn us... and now..." He stopped next to Sadness, arms folded. She was still crying. Anger's scowl gave way to puzzled eyebrows. He wasn't good with this kind of stuff. He adjusted his tie, cleared his throat, and, "Uhh... Sadness. So, uh... I'm... I'm sorry. I feel bad for Riley, too... Uh..."

"Why won't it work?!" Sadness bawled, "Sh-She... she..." she composed herself (for any given definition of "composed"), then said, "Riley should feel better now! But it's not... I'm not working!" This was followed by more waterworks.

Anger analyzed it all. He looked at Sadness, then at the screen, where Riley was staring numbly at the now-useless Valentine's Day card. The red brick nodded. "'Scuse me, Sadness," he said. He firmly pressed a button, and the console swirled blue and red.

Hurt, Riley decided to repay the pain on whatever she could, and - currently - it was that card. She ripped it.

Anger pressed the button again.

She ripped it again.

Again.

And again.

As the paper became more and more ruined, Riley felt the tears slowly slack. She hopped off the stool, then flipped up the lid, and dumped the scraps into the bowl. She sniffed once, then flushed the scraps away. They went smoothly down the drain, vanishing forever.

Riley was satisfied with that. She walked to the mirror and turned on the sink, then inspected her face for traces of tears.

Inside her head, Anger and Sadness stood at the console, arms now dangling by their sides. Their work was done. "Uh... Anger?" Sadness said.

"What?"

"Thank you."

"Yeah, sure..."

"Yeah, but, also, um..." She pointed back. Disgust and the others were watching.

It took a moment for Anger to process it, but when he did, his tone instantly became more apologetic. "Oh! J-Joy... I'm sorry! No, really, I am! Jeesh, I forgot... you and Riley worked so hard on that... but - y'know, in- in the heat of the moment..."

"It's okay," Joy said, the faint ghost of a smile still there, "I get it. No, really, I do... it was just a shock, is all."

Anger nodded, then walked back to the others.

"I, uh... I should probably make sure she looks fine," Disgust said, moving to the console.

Riley cleaned her face up in no time. She took a moment, breathing in and out, as she steadied her breathing and as her heartbeat wound back down. The eleven-year-old stared into her reflection. No signs of tears. No worries. Nobody would notice. She adjusted her backpack, and her hair.

Then she noticed that she didn't feel upset anymore. No anger, either. Jameson was just a stupid crush... and the strangest part of it all? Riley didn't feel any more sorrow. Jameson could befriend or be more-than-friends with whoever he wanted, even perfect Miss Phillips. All this "love" stuff wasn't for Riley, not yet. She could wait, and actually felt like it. Besides, it would probably help to avoid this drama nonsense altogether.

She smiled and walked out.


	13. Horror

In the mind of the eleven-year-old, HQ was washed in a purple-and-green glow. The pulsing, swirling light seemed to paint everything in sight. Five pairs of eyes (and one pair of glasses) locked onto the screen, five faces looked identical; wide eyes, slack jaws, utter shock. Only the smallest of differences stood out between them.

Anger's teeth were grit, exposed like a defensive wall of white daggers. Joy's hands were held up across her mouth, cheeks puffed up and nostrils flaring. Sadness's tiny hands remained limp by her sides, but her throat was in the middle of a wailing moan, as her eyes watered up. Fear's hands were at the console, and he was currently screaming. It looked as though his tongue was wanting to rip itself from his body and run far away, not desiring any part of what he was seeing. The same could be said for his sole strand of hair, rigid as an ice-cycle (as was his spine). Next to him stood Disgust. While one hand was reflexively gripping her purple peer's arm, the other was yanking a lever back for all it was worth. Her jaw was open in repulsive shock, and her pupils were mere dots in a sea of white (though the whiteness didn't seem to stop at her eyes; her whole body had turned a shade more pale than usual).

So sudden and unexpected was the shock that it seemed the whole world converged to this one tiny point, and time itself slowed down to process what was happening.

The day - until then - was pleasant, but unremarkable. Riley Andersen had a normal day at her normal school in San Francisco, hung out with her usual friends, and was walking home through the oft taken route of the park, enjoying the beautiful weather of the spring afternoon. As she had walked, she'd whistled a merry tune to herself, not a care in the world, waving at the occasional familiar face that she passed in the city of plants around her. She went around a bridge (her mind tricking her into seeing a troll for a second), past a swingset (where she saw an adorable little kid trying to capture an imaginary bird, clapping is hands and calling out to the unseen avian as though it were a dog), and stopped a moment to look at the pond where fish swam all around, not a care in their watery world.

She smiled at her own reflection, unaware that she was about to scream.

It started with a sickening wet sensation as something hit her head. Before her eyes caught up with her nerve endings, her brain processed the feeling; it was gross - to say the least - the feeling of brittle sticks snapping against a wet rag. As the experience went on, her eyes adjusted to the reflection, and she saw something on her head that she didn't believe at first.

A bird had somehow died and fallen - of all places - right into her hair.

But in the half second it took her mouth to form a scream, her mind went into a panicked overdrive.

Fear and Disgust yelled at once (swiftly followed by the others) and were at the console before Riley even blinked. Disgust yanked a lever. Fear slammed a button. Then Disgust grabbed Fear by the arm demanded that he "Get us away from it!Make us run away from that thing! We're gonna get a disease! Ew! Ew! Ew! Ew! Ew!"

Whimpering, stuttering, Fear shoved the button harder, and Riley felt utter horror envelop her. She flung her hands up and swatted the dead thing off, repulsed to say the least. It bounced to the sidewalk with another squishy noise, lifeless beak dangling open. For a few more seconds, Riley was frozen, eyes locked to the sight and lips quivering as her heart drummed away.

On the inside, Fear & Disgust matched her exactly, their trembling hands supporting eachother as each wore a mask of terror (and both did look like they were resisting the urge to lose their lunch). A mere whimper escaped Fear's mouth, but he said nothing else as the shocking event wound its way to a close.


	14. Embarrassment

"Gross gross gross gross _gross!"_ shrieked Disgust. Her hand went to her nose and she gagged. "I can smell it from all the way in here! That's... that's..."

"Disgusting?" Anger offered.

"Ugh!" His green coworker shuddered, backing off the console as if it had a disease. The little red brick smirked before sitting in the chair once more. He opened his newspaper. The main headline this time?

"Huh, 'Dead Bird Attack,' continued on page 12..." Anger mumbled to himself. He flipped over to the proper sheet, and was greeted by a picture of the aforementioned dead bird. "Yeesh," he said, "looks nasty." But he continued to read. It gave him something to do, after all.

"Stop looking at it!" Disgust screamed at Fear, who was still petrified and staring at the monitor. "Just - just stop it! Stop it already, before I hurl!"

"S-S-Sorry! Sorry," Fear said. The purple emotion swiftly turned a knob and pressed it down, telling Riley to look away from the horrid sight. She did just that. Her eyes darted back to the pond beside them. It was - admittedly - a much better view: no dead animals, no disgusting feelings of squishy birds hitting one's head, just soothing ripples in the water.

They only had a second to recover before their attention was needed again, but - in that time - the emotions were occupied. Still at the console, Fear was matching Riley's gaze. He looked with her into the soothing reflections of the water's surface, doing his best to let that calming sight wash over him and settle things down. Sadness was bawling on the couch, going on about the meaninglessness of life. Joy was next to her, slouched over, hands on her cheeks and eyes listlessly staring at the monitor. She was clearly doing her best to ignore the nihilistic wailing of her little blue friend. Behind the two foils paced Disgust, softly muttering things to herself - things like, "It's all over it's okay just breathe," and "It's fine we'll get through this this is nothing to worry about," and, "That dead bird was so gross! So gross! Ew, ew, ew, nasty!" In spite of the murmurings and mutterings, though, Anger was able to continue reading his newspaper.

"Just a few moments ago, we were struck in the head by what experts are calling the most unlikely thing in the world," he read, "A dead bird fell right from the sky, and found itself in our hair. Research suggests the chances of such a thing happening are exactly one in five zillion and three, but it happened nonetheless. Still baffled, our main researchers can only say that-"

But as he was reading, another headline, tinier and one column over, grabbed his gaze and latched it to its contents:

 _"We're Being Laughed At!"_

He did a double take, but there was no mistake. As he skimmed the short article, the simple truth came into focus. HQ went silent, save for that echoing noise; a quiet, trickling chuckle leaked in from the monitor's speakers. This was soon joined in by others. And all of them were undoubtedly directed at one person: Riley.

The eleven year old jerked her head up and noticed the kid from earlier pointing at her, one hand over his mouth, giggling at the incident. "Wow!" he said through half-stifled bursts, "What are the chances of _that_ happening?" Riley didn't respond; more laughter caught her attention. She spun around to see two other kids - kids she recognized from _her_ school, no less - giggling at the sight, looking right at her. She glanced left, and right, and saw that if people weren't laughing, they certainly were staring at her and the dead thing (the dead thing, she noted, which had copious amounts of purple-and-crimson guts now exposed to the world).

Inside her head, Fear was agitated, to say the least. Panicked, he shoved a lever forward. Twitching, he pressed a button. Nervous, he twisted a knob, but he'd miscalculated and misfired; instead of fleeing the embarrassing situation, Riley became frozen, petrified by panic. Her muscles locked up, her breathing sped up, and her heart felt like it had been replaced with a jackhammer. _'Move, Riley, move!'_ she thought to herself.

"Come on!" Fear yelled, "Move, move, move!" He yanked the levers back and forth, but all it succeeded in doing was increasing her breathing. It was a nightmare for Fear if there ever was one; for every laugh, for every staring eye directed to Riley, Fear felt twenty more reach through the monitor and stab him. If it weren't for his duty to Riley, he'd have run off in a panicked scream. As it was, it took all he had not to duck down beneath the console, whimper, and beg someone else to take care of it.

But he didn't do that. No, he frantically pressed those buttons, only succeeding in making Riley lock up.

Under his breath, Anger spat out the single curse word he knew (he'd been saving it for a time such as this). He had watched the situation unfold, and an increasing frustration was building up. He felt angry at the others for just standing there like dopes, not doing a thing but staring at Fear with dangling jaws. He felt frustrated with Fear, of course, for letting his panic get the best of him and lock up on Riley. He felt somewhat heated at Riley (though he'd never admit it in a million years) for taking the "statue" route instead of scrambling out of the situation, and - most of all - he felt blistering _rage_ at everyone else in the park for _daring_ to look at Riley and laugh at the situation!

So, he threw the paper down and then scampered over to the console. "Whaddya think you're doing?!" he demanded to his violet coworker.

"I-I-I-" Fear sputtered out, like a broken record.

"You're making it worse!" Anger spouted, the faintest of heat waves cracking his scalp.

"Sorry! I'm sorry," Fear whimpered.

"You want Riley to stay here and be a laughingstock? Is that it?"

"No!" Fear said defensively, eyes wide with... well, take a guess, "No, no, no! I'm not- I just- I mean-"

"Then let's _move!"_ Anger declared, seizing the lever in an iron grip (he was heedless of the pain this caused Fear, whose hand was still there). The red emotion then gave it as hard of a yank as he could. Fear himself got even more panicked at that, recalling a movie they'd seen recently, where the main character threw a temper tantrum, wound up wrecking the party he was in, and then promptly made one embarrassing mistake after the other for the majority of the film.

Not wanting that to happen to Riley, Fear leaned all the way across the console, straining himself until he could reach the recall tube commands. He promptly ordered up the aforementioned memory of the movie, then prayed it would be sufficient to keep Anger from making the same mistake. The big, hulking protagonist showed up on-screen, his messy brown hair hidden in a purple glow. After the memory began playing, all there was to do was stay standing, jerked back and forth by Anger (he was still unaware that he was crushing some small purple fingers).

It took no time at all for Riley Andersen to move out of the park, running past the now-sympathetic faces of those who were staring at her - including the little kid from earlier. He had walked over and began poking the dead bird with a stick, asking a nearby adult if it was "a species of Snipe?"

But Riley didn't hear that. All she heard was a second burst of laughter, and - assuming it was still aimed at her - she double-timed it, legs moving like engines. She did anything she could to take her burning cheeks far from the sight of others.

Gradually, her lungs forced her to slow to a walk, and she looked back and around. She was now on a street corner, three blocks from home, and - happily - noted that nobody was so much as glancing in her direction. That was good. She slowly wound her breath to a normal rate (though her heart's pounding fit lingered a moment) and resumed her walk home. That's where she wanted to be, away from all the prying eyes and laughing grins.

Inside, Sadness had walked up to the console, trading places with her red counterpart. Anger himself had returned to his chair, grumbling about "people and their stupid sense of humor." Sadness spared him a sympathetic glance before getting Fear's attention. She had brought with her a bag of ice.

"Here," she mumbled, dropping the ice into Fear's now-throbbing palm.

"Th-thanks," the purple emotion said, attention entirely focused on the source of his pain. "Heh, s-strong grip..." he mused to himself. He walked briskly back to the couch, then sat down and tended to his aching appendage.

Naturally, this left Sadness alone at the console, and - through her soothing influence - coaxed Riley's cheeks into cooling down. The blushing, burning sensation faded to nothing, and Riley sighed despondently. She kept on walking. Home couldn't arrive soon enough. All she wanted was to walk in, go upstairs, throw herself onto her bed, and forget all about that dead bird.


	15. Irritation

When the sun is shining, and the birds are chirping, and the clouds are perched high in the sky - like the starry decorations on Riley's ceiling at night - that's one of the signs of a good day. This happy weather had infected Riley, and not just because she'd turned _twelve_ over the weekend; it was simply a good day. So she skipped down the street with a smile on her face, feeling unusually giddy for not much of a reason.

 _"Click!"_ went her phone's camera, as she took another goofy selfie. The picture was really a work of art - crossed eyes, a tongue sticking out, one nostril bigger than the other... Riley felt she'd begun to master the art of taking stupid pictures. Smiling with pride, she sent it to her parents along with a message that read:

 _Nearly to school now! Still having a good day! :DDD_

They weren't likely to respond (when she'd left them, they only had enough time to hug her goodbye, thanks in no small part to that boring adult "business" stuff that Dad always seemed to be stuck in), but that was alright. Anything to brighten up their day, in whatever way she could! She hummed to herself as she walked up to the school's doors, ready to start another good week. She'd studied for her tests, did all her homework, and was ready to practice with the team after school!

Inside her head, the feeling was only amplified. Joy was in an unusually good mood (now, _that's_ saying a lot). Cheerful as she was, it was unusual for her to be _this_ happy. Yes, she did usually bring an air of... well, _joy_ , to everything - but when her golden gleam was twice as bright as usual, and when her wit was suddenly sharp enough to spit out joke after joke at nearly everything, and when she'd managed to make _everyone_ , yes (including Sadness) bust their guts once or twice in utter hilarity - well, _that_ was certainly an accomplishment.

"Now, who's ready for another good day?!" She asked.

"We are!" the others all shouted.

"That's what I wanna hear!" Joy declared, bouncing back over to the console.

* * *

Riley was feeling alright as she walked to school the next day. She had a spring in her step and a smile on her face. The sun was glowing, the birds were tweeting out their songs (in spite of the traffic that would occasionally block them out), and the clouds were floating high up like giant blimps in a blue ocean. It was another good day, though the twelve-year-old wasn't nearly as giddy or joyful as yesterday.

She rounded the corner and was face-to-face with the school. She breathed in and sighed happily. Practice had gone well yesterday, she got a B on her test, and not a single homework assignment was missing. Surely, today would be another good one.

"Hey, Anderstink," said a voice.

You would be forgiven for thinking those were magic words; instantly, Riley's shoulder slouched and her eyes rolled, but she kept her mouth shut as its smile flickered away. A bigger kid, with his too-familiar spiked hair and constantly sneering face full of freckles, marched past Riley without sparing her a second glance. She sighed, but not happily.

"Pshh, seriously?" Anger asked from the back of the room, on his chair. "What a dumb insult!"

"That was mean of him..." Sadness groaned heavily, putting her hands over her eyes, "Oh, now everyone's gonna call us that!"

"Wait a minute, now- that- that can't be true! Heh, I mean... uh..." Fear was nervously attempting to convince himself (and Sadness) that that wasn't the case. It wasn't quite working.

"Oh, come on, guys!" Joy declared, "We can't let _that_ get us down! I mean, yeah, okay that was pretty mean, but... but... Disgust, what's the word I'm looking for?"

Her green friend had walked up to the console and flicked a button. "It wasn't creative," she said, shrugging.

"There! See, guys!" Joy said, still smiling.

"I mean, he could've done a better insult than _that!_ " Disgust scoffed.

"Exactly!" Joy announced, "Proving that he didn't care about upsetting us enough to do a good job at it!"

Slowly, heads nodded in agreement. It made sense, and they all quickly got over that little bump in the road.

* * *

A happy twelve-year-old child walked to school content on Wednesday. No, not that many birds were chirping away in the air, and - yes - several clouds sometimes conspired to block out the sunshine. The light sprinkle from last night still had the sidewalk splotched with the occasional puddle, which Riley took some small pleasure stepping in. As the water splashed up into fine sprinkles, a smile correspondingly flickered across her face, but just long enough return to a stoic, neutral rest.

All in all, an unremarkable day.

Punctuated, of course, by an all-too-familiar phrase.

"Move it, Anderstink, I'm late!"

She was gruffly shoved aside as the towering mountain of a kid repeated his previous insult, nearly causing her to trip and fall into a fairly large puddle.

"Hey!" she said, "Excuse you!"

"Shut up!" was all the response she got as the rather foul-tempered kid moved onwards.

Riley felt disgusted at that. "Ugh!" said her little green friend, "Can you believe it? The nerve, just the _nerve_ of it! Rude!"

"Come on, Joy," Anger said, throwing his paper down, "First yesterday, now today! Let's teach him a lesson!"

Joy stood still, eyes flitting back and forth and struggling to come up with an explanation as to why they _shouldn't_ "teach him a lesson." She was just about to admit defeat, too, and say that it would be best if they did say something, when Fear stepped in.

"No, no!" he yelled, "We can't do that! He's ten times our size!"

"We'll take him, easy - he's big and clumsy!" pointed out Anger.

"No!" Fear said, meekly shoving his foot to the ground, "I-I'm putting my foot down, here - if we do anything like that, we'll probably get in trouble! No, let's just... let's just play it safe and ignore it for now."

"Okay," said Anger through grit teeth, "You make sense."

"Thanks!"

"I hate it. I wish you didn't, but you do, so there. If anyone needs me, I'll be over in my chair, reading and _not_ doing my job!" With a huff, he sat down. Disgust gave Fear a "I-hope-you-know-what-you're-doing" glance, then she whipped out her little makeup kit and occupied herself with that. Fear sighed in relief.

"Thank you," Joy whispered, "That could've been bad."

The purple emotion beamed with some small pride. "Well, it was nothing, Joy, really! I'm sure we've seen the last of this guy's bullying."

* * *

As Riley walked to school on Friday, her sneakers clacked off the sidewalk like they usually did. She glanced up at the sky, wishing there was more blue than white, but - whatever - beggars can't be choosers. Besides, after a year of living here, you'd think she'd get used to the heat. Nope! She still found herself wearing T-shirts longer than most of her other classmates, and being the first to stop wearing sweaters as the seasons shifted. Case in point: it was starting to turn to winter, and some kids could be seen in jackets already, but Riley Andersen had chosen a vibrant green T-shirt with a rather angry looking ladybug decorating its surface. He was a character always mistaken for a girl just because of his family name, which - to Riley - was always chuckle-worthy.

But, of course, she wasn't chuckling today, nor smiling, nor frowning. It was another simple day in San Francisco, and she'd walked to school just like all the days before.

She glanced down to her phone. It was a group text from H.

 _Mary, Riley, Jacob: U guys wanna hang out after school?  
_ _My bro's got a REAAAAALLY cool game he said we could try out!_

Riley sighed despondently, and replied quickly.

 _Sorry. :/ I've got Homework & Hockey. Maybe 2morrow?_

When she looked up, her stoic expression shifted to a frown. Guess who was standing there, blocking the way?

"Anderstink!" he declared, as though seeing a friend he hadn't seen in a while.

"Excuse me," Riley quietly said, trying to move past.

"Ah ah ah!" chided the punk, stepping left and right and not letting Riley past, "You've gotta practice! Don't wanna screw up like the game last weekend, right?"

In her head, Anger yelled. "That's it!" he shouted, "No more!"

He'd held it in when Fear whimpered at the bully's sight. He'd refrained himself when Joy stepped back from the console, scared. He even resisted long enough to let Sadness step up and meekly ask the punk to move aside, but when that _jerk_ had the utter _nerve_ to use Riley's own mistake against her, and when it made Sadness drop down in tears right away? Well, enough was enough.

He jumped off the couch, chucked his paper to a silent Joy, then rolled back his sleeves and stood there, considering the best move. Specifically, should Riley give him a good insult _before_ or _after_ shoving him to the ground? He glanced to his left to see Disgust there, mirroring him exactly.

"So," he said, "What's your plan?"

"Well," she replied, "Let's insult him really good! I've got a list I've been preparing all morning!"

"Alright," Anger said, twisting a knob, "And I'll make sure we've got the face to match."

The bully did a double-take at Riley's glare, genuinely caught off-guard. Disgust chuckled as she plopped an idea bulb right in, and pressed a corresponding button. The console flared green-and-red, a mixed orb rolled out, and Riley spat out a precision-crafted insult at the jerk. She'd put up with _enough_ for the day- _and_ the week. No more!


	16. Bashfulness

Riley Andersen had said goodnight to her parents. She waited in bed as she heard their feet leave her room, then waited some more after they turned her door shut. Even then, she held her breath and listened as their footsteps receded into silence. Then, more silence ticked by while minutes rolled on. And Riley Andersen stayed quiet, waiting, listening.

But she heard nothing.

So she sat up, taking her covers off and creeping quietly over to the doorway, where the lightswitch was. _Flick_. A single gesture and the room was seen in full, every poster, every shelf, every feature. Bright enough for her to see where she was stepping as she walked across the floor, heart pounding out of her chest. Bright enough to see the drawer as she pulled it oh so gently. Bright enough to read the names and titles of various thin books that rested in that drawer, as she took them out and - lighter than air - set them on the ground. Bright enough to see one book in particular, and bright enough to read the name "Riley" written across its otherwise-plain surface, the letters an eye-catching purple and yellow and blue.

She glanced behind her, but her ears confirmed that her parents were still nowhere to be seen.

She started breathing quietly again, and opened the book, turning through its lined pages of lead text and the odd drawing. Eventually, as though someone had flicked a switch again, the text stopped, and a fresh, blank page greeted Riley's keen eyes. Bright enough to read, bright enough to write. So she wrote. Blushing, she let a smile grow across her face while her fingers went to work. She wrote today's date, "November 27th," and the words, "Today something really really cool happened..."

Inside her head, she was experiencing a thrill of purple mingled with a warm wave of gold. Joy and Fear shared the console, while Disgust - her steps light, her smile sly, her cheerful gait leaping over to the room's center - held a gold and purple orb, from earlier that same day. It was uncharacteristic of her to wear such a large grin, yes, but even moreso was it odd to see that same expression adorning Sadness's face. The memory came on.

Riley had walked down the school hall. The night before, she actually got to hang out at the skating rink with a few of her friends, you see, and managed to pull off some fairly impressive moves. And guess who saw them? Oh, none other than Jameson Berker, the one kid who made Riley's heart flutter every time she saw him! Hours ago, Riley had passed him in the hall, and - not only did he remember her name - he said, "Hey, Riley! Sick moves last night!" and then gave her a high five!

She'd been careful, and had made sure not to wash her hand or use it for anything else all day. She wanted to write with his touch still there. And the memory was on her mind now, currently entrancing Joy, Sadness, and Disgust in sighs of dreamy affection. The atmosphere even went so far as to affect Anger, who watched from the back with an approving, prideful smile that all but screamed, "Darn right Riley impressed Jameson." Only Fear wasn't joining in on the festivities.

"Shh! No, stop! Stop!" Fear exclaimed, hand still on a button, "Joy, stop!"

"Hmm?" she asked, eyes half open, still not there, "Did you say something?"

"Yesss!" He hissed, "Stop right now, stop writing!"

Confused, Joy complied, hesitantly lifting her palm from the console. A heartbeat passed as Fear's eyes glanced to the monitor, where Riley's eyes glanced to the door and listened.

"What-" began Joy.

"Shh!" hissed Fear, ignoring the brief scowl he earned from his yellow companion. More seconds passed before Fear let himself wipe his forehead. "Okay, false alarm. I thought I heard Mom and Dad."

"O-Oh," Joy said, confused, "I didn't hear anything."

"Well I did, okay? So... let's just- let's write more quietly, okay? I don't want them seeing us."

"Fear, they won't, okay?" Joy said, hugging him with one arm and giving him an unwanted noogie with the other, "Get that worried skull of yours out of the storm clouds! Come on, even Sadness is happy now!"

Fear looked back at where Joy gestured. Yes, Sadness was staring up at the memory with Disgust, both whispering in hushed tones. The words "Jameson" and "handsome" and "like" came up quite frequently.

"Okay," he conceded, "Yes."

"And aren't you happy for Riley?" Joy asked, "I mean - come on - our-... _her_ crush walked by and gave her a high five! Don't you feel happy for her?"

"Well, yes! Of course I do, Joy! I mean, that's great, but-"

"But what, worryworm?"

"Oh, I don't know, _Mom and Dad,_ maybe? Maybe that's what? Maybe if they find out we'll- we'll... how'd you put it, Disgust?"

No response.

"D-Disgust?"

But she was gone, staring into the orb. "Ooh, shut up! This is my favorite part!"

 _"Clap!"_ came the faint sound of the high five, and Disgust giggled with Sadness. "Yeah!" said the blue one, "I like that, too. Especially the way it stung for minutes afterwords... heh."

Disgust's smile slowly flickered, but came back when Sadness rewound the memory once more.

Fear conceded defeat. "Fine, Joy," he said, "If you guys need me, I'll be with my tea. But just- just be careful! Don't let Riley get found out! Please..."

"Oh, go get your tea!" Joy said with a playful punch on Fear's shoulder, "We'll be over here letting Riley have the time of her life is all."

But it was scarcely a minute later, scarcely a minute more of Riley drawing away, pouring her deepest feelings out onto the page, when she jerked her head up in worry. She blinked. She gasped, then stopped breathing. The door opened, and there was her mom, in her night clothes, looking right down at her daughter.

"Mom," Riley mouthed, eyes widening. Her cheeks become blisteringly red.

"Riley? What are you-..." her mom began, but then stopped as she noticed Riley's journal. It was no secret that she had it, just what was written in it. In an instant, her emotions were on it.

"Alright," said her Sadness, after a deep breath, "Well, guys, does this look familiar to anyone else?"

A bunch of nods. "Yep," said Fear with a chuckle.

"Eighth grade?" offered Joy.

"Yep," said Sadness, recalling a memory.

"No, no, we don't- heh, we..." Disgust said, voice trailing off. A green orb came back; Jill Andersen (though her last name was different then), writing in her diary about the cutest boy she ever saw at school, who had complimented her shoes earlier that day (shoes, no less, prominently featuring her favorite characters from a certain movie about a certain boy friends with a certain bear in a certain forest). "C-C-Can we stop, now?" Disgust said, nervously laughing, "We get it, guys, we totally get it... I-I think we reviewed enough?"

"Oh, yeah," said Sadness through a nostalgic smile, "Sorry."

"Thank you," Disgust murmured, then pressed a button. The memory went back.

"Okay, what should we do, then?" Fear asked, "I mean, I don't think- it's- is it our business? I mean-"

"Depends on who the boy is," Anger commented, a slight threat to her undertone.

"Well, for all we know it's not about a boy," Joy said with a shrug.

"...Hmm..." pondered Sadness, "I don't think this situation calls for a probe... Let's just... let's just see if she _wants_ to tell us, and then remind her she has school tomorrow."

All agreed that it was a good idea, and so Jill Andersen got down to her knees, looked her daughter in the eyes, and - with a smile - said, "Watcha doin'?"

Riley was a statue. A slack-jawed, red-cheeked, wide-eyed statue. In her head, Fear had seized the controls, spilling his tea - but nobody cared. Anger was staring in worry at the screen. Disgust had hid the orb behind her, as though Riley's Mom could see through her daughter's eyes and right at the slightly-blushing green figure. Sadness was over by the console, whining, "Joyyy..." from the back of her throat. "Joy... we can't let Mom get the wrong idea..."

"R-Right, right, but- but..." Joy slapped herself, quietly instructing herself to get it together, then turned to Disgust. "Heyyy," she said, "Mom kinda asked us what we're doing, and we should really really _really_ tell the truth, so... is that alright?"

Disgust bit her lip, and her eyes widened, and her cheeks turned more red.

"...Disgust?"

"I gotta go to bed," she said, then bolted, taking the orb with her to the room.

"Huh," Anger muttered, "She looked redder than me for a second."

"I'll take that as an 'alright,' then," Joy said, then went up to the controls, where Fear still remained, paralyzed grip on a lever. "Fear?" Joy asked, "Could you, uh... well, this whole 'death grip on the lever' thing isn't gonna stop us from telling the truth now, is it?"

No response, but a gulp. "She's looking at us," Fear said, "She knows. She knows what we're doing. She know she knows she know she knows..."

Joy hesitated, then gripped Fear's hand, steadily cranking the lever down. "Okay," she said, "We... we kinda need to make sure she doesn't get the wrong idea, here, so I'm just gonna turn this down like _that_ , and then..."

Leaning over, she pressed a button, adding yellow to Fear's purple. Riley nervously coughed, then weakly smiled and said, "Oh, h-hi Mom, uh..."

"It's okay," her mother said soothingly, putting her hands up, "I'm not gonna peek. I know, it's a boy, right?"

Riley's heart skipped a beat. Her whole face began turning red.

"Oh no, this is so bad!" Sadness moaned, "She's worried for us, isn't she? She shouldn't be worried for us! We should- we should apologize and let her know we're sorry..." Sadness clicked a button, and a third color joined in to dance with the others; a brilliant gold, purple, and blue light swirled around the console. A similar memory came to life, rolling across the shelves, unnoticed by all but Anger, who murmured something to himself about how they "haven't seen one of _those_ in a while," with an appreciative whistle.

Fear, with his iron grip. Joy, with her smiling demeanor. Sadness, with her concern for their relationship with Mom. The three of Riley's tiny friends made a symphony of noise in her mind, and she meekly mumbled, "Y-yes..." head tucked down and cheeks blisteringly red.

Her mom noticed. Mrs. Anderson's mouth dropped slightly in a frown, and her Sadness quickly said, "Oh! Oh, poor girl, we've embarrassed her again!"

"Like that's hard to do," Disgust muttered.

"We should stop," Fear said.

"It's past her bedtime, anyways," Anger added.

"We can talk to her about it later," Joy commented.

"Alright," Sadness said, "Let's just get to bed."

Jill Anderson stood up. "Oh, sorry, Riley," she whispered, "I get it, I really do."

Riley blinked, but didn't look up. Her flaming cheeks still made her self-conscious.

"I was your age once," continued her Mom, with a laugh, "I know what it's like to have a crush. I didn't come here to pry... just to tell you that it's late, and you should get to bed."

Riley looked up at her mom. She didn't say a word. In spite of this, her mother could read it on her face: "Thank you," her face said, "For not pushing it."

Jill Andersen smiled, then walked to the door. "Goodnight, Monkey," she said, "For real, this time."

"Y-Yeah," Riley softly laughed, "Yeah, that's probably a good idea. Goodnight, Mom."

She finished her sentence, closed her journal, put it all back, then slipped back under the covers. And then, content with how the matter had resolved, and relieved enough for her heart to wind to a normal tempo, Riley drifted off into a wonderful night's sleep.


	17. Exhaustion

She felt drained in the best possible way. As the crowd erupted into a roar, the tension vanished. It took with it all the adrenaline that came with hockey. It left behind three things on the twelve-year-old as her team swarmed into hugs and cheers, congratulating each other on the first victory of the season. And - by the looks on the other childrens' faces - Riley wasn't the only one to feel these things.

First, it had left a smile on her face. Its glowing form stretched from ear-to-ear beneath two shining eyes. Joyful giggling came bubbling up from her belly. It erupted from her chest like an earthquake, only making her smile grow wider with each breath. She looked up into the crowd, and saw her parents - still wearing that ridiculous facepaint - screaming and cheering happily. At any other time, it would be embarrassing, but not now. Now, she stretched her hand high over her teammates, waving frantically until Mom and Dad waved back, mouths tracing her name over and over again with similar smiles.

But she winced as she moved across the rink with her team, to wrap up the game. The excitement gone, it also left pain behind. An ache had taken hold of her leg, and her lungs were on fire. To say she'd played hard was an understatement; she felt pain in her chest, a ragged, raw pain that came with each breath she took. Her leg, as well, stung with the ache of exerting itself. Its twin also twinged in sympathy, though not as heavily. She flexed her fingers, and rubbed her palms, realizing for the first time what an iron-tight grip she had on the hockey stick. Her hands throbbed in the aftermath of her exertions, crying out to her in fitful aches. But it wasn't enough to wipe that smile away.

Lastly, in the absence of all the intensity, her nose picked up an all-too-familiar odor. Sweat. She was soaked in it. It permeated her clothes, it rode her face, and - of course - it took up its uncomfortable residence in her armpits. She gagged, and as she did, she realized something else, namely that her nose had started running. She realized this in the worst way possible, as well: some of the snot had slid down her smile and into her mouth. Tasting it made her wince, gag once more, and actually lose the smile...

But only for a second. Riley Andersen was truly happy, and that happiness stayed even as she walked up to her parents afterwords. Her smile was still stuck to her cheeks, her hands still ached (she noted the red imprint of where the stick had been), and sweat still clung to her, a disgusting odor hovering in the air around her, but she still felt exhausted in the best possible way.

* * *

Inside her head, her Joy was up front, exerting the most influence as she twirled around in her dress and celebrated with her girl. Buttons were pressed, levers were yanked, and laughter shot out. Ever the fountain of energy, even after such a game, Joy was the most hyped up of the bunch, still raving on about what had happened.

"Woohoo!" she cried, "I still can't believe we made that shot - can you believe it?! I can't! Fear, did you think we'd make it?!"

Her friend, Fear, was lying on the couch, the polar opposite of Joy. Limp arms lay dangling off the edge as he stared up at the ceiling, panting from all the hard work he'd done to keep Riley safe, focused, and aware of the swarming game around her. A meek thumbs-up sign was all he communicated, and that - too - didn't last long as his dead arm dropped back to the couch, and he kept breathing heavily, contemplating a nice green meadow with endless blue skies and a golden sun shining down...

"Oh, but our arms hurt... and our legs, too, and our palms..."

The blue light on the console was - of course - Sadness's doing, as she tinged its surface in her sobering influence. The game may have been won, the effort worth it, but she was mostly aware of the pain Riley felt. Even as it slowly (oh, so slowly) began fading away, Sadness's presence lingered, a blue smear in Riley's Mind. Undoubtedly, she was aware of the pain, and she was aware of how it felt, but it only served to make the victory that much more sweet, in her eyes.

"Yeah," came a response from Anger. The red brick sat in his chair, waving his face with a newspaper in an attempt to cool down - a rare sight. His usual spark was gone, replaced with drooping eyes after a solid hour of hard work keeping Riley driven and energized, along with Joy. Her passion for hockey never took a break, and only grew larger with each game played. "I hope we can get home and rest soon," he added, "The last thing I want is to be stuck in another one of this place's horrible traffic jams. Again." He could just picture it: there they'd be, stuck in a locked wall of cars, while that stinkin' _song_ (the one that had taken over YouTube in mere weeks) played on the radio over and over and over again. Oh, sure, Riley would be bound to let _something_ go if she heard that one more time: her sanity.

"Ew!" Disgust said, "Don't even say that!" Her hand was laid across a button, and the corresponding green had swallowed her little slice of the console. "First the sweat, then that snot, now us getting stuck in a traffic jam on the way home? Ugh!" She flung her free hand up. "Stop," she said, "Just- just stop. Now. Don't even say that again."

A weak chuckle came from Anger, and Disgust spared him a glare before returning to work.

The adrenaline, the passion, the excitement. They were all gone, and now the aftermath had arrived. With it came three little feelings, Disgust, Sadness, and Joy, whose swirling mix produced another memory for Long Term to store that night.


	18. Bravery

Riley had put up with this long enough. In front of her stood a towering mountain of a kid, intimidating. His disgusting sneer (as ugly as his red, yellow, and blue shirt) was curled up in arrogance as he blocked her path to school that miserable Friday morning. What was his problem? Why was he always pulling stunts like this, and not just to her, to every kid? Whatever the cause, she was fed up with it. Enough was enough, and this kid could take his "Anderstink" and other petty insults and shove them right back in his mouth where they belonged.

In her head, Anger howled out. "That's it!" His voice practically shook the room, echoing off the walls violently. "No more!"

Earlier, Fear was cowering, whimpering, making Riley feel intimidated by the bully. Anger had restrained himself then. Joy backed off the console, leaving room for an opening, but Anger had simply breathed in, breathed out, and glared. _'No use picking a fight with someone so big,'_ he thought. Sadness even went to the console and softly (oh so softly) asked the bully to move.

Then the breaking point came.

"Excuse me," Riley had said as her little blue friend had taken the helm.

But her request fell on deaf ears as the much larger kid began shuffling around more, to block Riley's way. "Ah ah ah!" he even said, "You've gotta practice! Don't wanna screw up like the game last weekend, right?"

That broke Sadness down, and made Riley wince. She felt quite suddenly vulnerable, and Sadness blew up as tears rained everywhere.

That - right there - was the breaking point.

Anger shunted himself off the sofa in rage. Joy silently caught the newspaper as he threw it her way, not even looking - his eyes were dead set on the monitor and the bully's sneering face. Only a glance at his left showed him that Disgust was there with him, ready to help.

"So," Anger asked, flicking a lever to let Riley grind her teeth, "What's your plan?"

"Well," Disgust said, giving Riley a repulsed scowl, "Let's insult him really good! I've got a list I've been preparing all morning!"

"Alright, and I'll make sure we've got the face to match."

Anger twisted a knob, and smiled in satisfaction. That punk was visibly startled by Riley's glare. Disgust chuckled, plopping an idea bulb into the console, and shoved down a button. The console flared to life, a crimson-and-green memory came, and Riley shot out a precision-crafted insult at the jerk.

"Look, cactus-head, I know you need my attention so bad that you just _have_ to use that lame insult every day, but I'm not into guys whose pastimes include using their own faces as doorstops. _Move._ "

Shock was written across his formerly snide face (which had indeed run into a door the previous day - though nobody dared laugh at him for fear of sharing his fate). No longer was there a confident, egotistical sneer. No, it was replaced with a dangling jaw. Riley moved past, developing a faint smirk of her own.

"Hah!" Anger exclaimed, giving Disgust a high five, "Nicely done!"

"Of course," she said with pride, "I'd been saving that one since yesterday."

"Awesome, everyone!" Joy said, springing back to vibrant life and moving to the console, "He moved right out of our way!"

"Anderstink!"

Riley blinked and groaned on the inside. She didn't bother turning around to face the punk, but she did slow her walking to hear him say, "You're gonna have to try harder than that, friggin' brat!"

She rolled her eyes and continued into the building. _'Look who's talking,'_ she thought with a chuckle.

* * *

The weekend came and went and left Riley in much better spirits. Sunday's Hockey game had been nothing short of a success. It was the third game she'd played in San Francisco, ever, and what was that end score? Four-to-one Foghorns. There was no contest in the situation, at all. Riley's team had owned every square inch of that rink. So it was no surprise that, Monday morning, she came skipping into school with a smile on her face and a spring in her step, whistling _'Sweet Victory'_ to herself. Spirits were soaring both outside and in; as Disgust applied facepaint to a rarely smiling Sadness, Anger happily hummed along and read the sports section of the paper along with Fear, and Joy herself was where you'd expect her to be - front and center (at their newly upgraded console, no less!) and being her usual happy self.

But then Riley rounded the corner to see that same bully - the same punk who was bothering her last Friday - picking on some poor hapless kid. After a split-second, she blinked and recognized who it was; she'd run into him at the game the night before. The poor boy was nearing the point of tears as the bully dangled his hat just out of his reach. His other cluster of sausage fingers grabbed the kid's shirt tight.

"Please, man!" the other one said, "Just let me go!"

His tormentor did so, shoving him against the locker with a deep, dumb laugh.

Riley felt a flicker of pity, but that was soon replaced. Her eyebrows collapsed down into a scowl as she sucked in a breath and gritted her teeth. Anger had grabbed the levers. His tie was loosened and his head was starting to burn. Faint embers cracked across that red scalp, watering the air in a heatwave.

"Wait!" Fear said, scrambling up to the console and yanking a lever, "Remember how much bigger that guy is than us?!"

Riley stopped and blinked. She was about to step in front of someone who wasn't exactly known for their kindness, and whose arms looked more like meaty tree trunks.

"And what about everyone else?" Fear stuttered, "They're-they- they'll be watching us! All those eyes, on us - judging us!"

She glanced around.

There were... a _lot_ of other kids in the crowded hall, looking at the situation, some smiling, others frowning. Did she really want to be the new center of attention?

Well?

Sadness - who was still at the console with Disgust - spoke, tears still dangling from her eyelids as she said, "B-B-But look at that poor kid! He's probably fe-f-feeling awful!"

Fear gulped, and nodded, conceding the point.

"And I don't know about you," Anger added, "But I want to give that _jerk_ a taste of his own medicine!"

The purple one failed to argue against that. "B-B-But-but... well... okay, y-yeah, that'd feel good, I-I-I guess..."

"So," the red brick replied, "Let us do our job."

Fear conceded, moving his hands away as Sadness and Anger joined forces to move Riley forward. Her scowl came back twofold and she shoved her worries away, marching deliberately up to the rotten punk. Her feet found themselves firmly planted, standing between him and the kid he was provoking. She popped a knuckle or two as she stared up into the bully's eyes, still scowling, still grinding her teeth. She didn't need to say a single word. No, the rest of her spoke volumes, and got the bully thinking.

"Hahah!" Joy laughed, "Yes! Yes, yes, yes!" She leaned on the console, elbows pressing a few buttons as she did so. "You go, Riley!"

Riley would recall that memory throughout the day and even later that night; a swirling orb of blistering, crimson rage directed at the big figure before her, deep dark blue in sympathy for the victim, and a tinge of electric happiness, Joy at the feeling of _finally_ standing up to the little tyrant. All three merged in harmony, and made this looping image of Riley staring the bully down.

It might have come to blows. And you know what? Riley was too determined to care or worry. If he wanted to start up a fight, she'd _gladly_ fight back. It was this - something about her attitude - that made the larger kid hesitate. In the back of his mind, his Fear recalled what he'd seen Riley do at the Hockey game the previous night, how she moved, how fiercely she played... faintly, he shuddered to think of having to fight her. In fact, he was tempted to put his fists down and just walk away, when-

"Mister Philips!" came an angry shout, "What do you think you're doing, hmm?"

All eyes turned to watch one of the teachers, a bird-eyed, bald-headed man who looked like he'd had _quite_ enough stress for the day already, and wasn't about to put up with any more.

"M-M-Mr. Krop!" Philips said through a stutter, "Uh- I-I was helping-"

"Yeah, we have security cameras for a reason. Come on; I'll help _you_ to the office. Let's tell the Principal all about it!"

Not another word came from the kid's mouth, just a shamefaced frown as his whole head turned red in embarrassment. _'Oh man,'_ he thought as he was escorted away, _'Oh, Aunt Hannah's gonna kill me...'_ As quickly as the crowd of kids had swarmed to see the sight, they evaporated back into their normal routines, completely ignoring Riley as she turned and helped the bullied kid up, giving him back his hat.

"Th-thanks," he said, not making eye contact, instead directing his gaze to the floor.

"No problem," Riley smiled, extending a hand, "I met you at the game last night, right?"

"Yes? Yeah, yes," he said, shaking her hand quite nervously still, "Nice to meet you."

"I'm Riley."

"Jordan," he said, his eyes ever so briefly making contact before bouncing off elsewhere again.

In Riley's mind, Sadness recalled the memory from almost a year ago, her first week in San Francisco.

"You new here?" she asked.

"Yeah, we just moved."

"I know what that's like," Riley nodded, "I moved here from out of State last year."

At that, Jordan blinked and looked at Riley, no longer feeling quite so nervous. Someone else like him? Someone else who had come to this big, scary city?

"What class do you have first?" Riley asked, still smiling.

"Uh-... uh... science?" he said, looking at a little paper with his schedule neatly printed on it. "Yeah, Science."

"I'm going there, too," Riley said, "Come on, I'll show you where it is."

"O-Okay, thanks!"

And - with that - Riley and Jordan walked and chatted all the way to the Science room. They each mentally added the other to their list of friends.


	19. Self Indulgence

**Temporary Author's Note: Hey guys! Steveles here, and I'm back to fanfiction!**

 **...but not back to update this story. I wanted to let you know that I'm going to be tackling this one story at a time, so that I don't get burnt out. So, "The Gallery" will be updated, but not right now. That'll be in a few months. I explain it all in an author's note on chapter 20 of my fanfic, "Whose Mind is it, Anyway?"**

 **So, for specific info on _why_ it'll be a few months before I resume "The Gallery," head over there and all will be made clear. The author's note is at the top of the chapter, so don't worry about spoilers. In fact, you can't really spoil that fanfic, considering it's like this one, a bunch of vignettes (and none of them are connected in "Whose Mind is it, Anyway?" so it's all good).**

 **That being said, I figured I owed you guys. So, while you're waiting, I figured I'd give you two more updates (this one and the next! Woohoo! Two chapters for the price of one!) to hold you over in the meantime.**

 **Thank you for your patience, and I hope you enjoy reading! :-)**

 **-Steveles**

* * *

You know what a bad day is? A bad day is when your moving van is sent to another state and you have to sleep on the floor. That's a bad day.

You know what a worse day is? A worse day is when you almost run away because the city you've moved to is big, scary, and nothing like home. That's a worse day.

You know what's somewhere sandwiched between those two? Being sick just days after those two things happened. Riley Andersen could attest to that fact as she lay in bed, feeling awful. Her sore throat throbbed as though it had been rubbed raw by steel wool. The headache didn't help matters, and the icing on top of the "bad day" cake? Mom and Dad _had_ to leave that day - Dad, as usual, had business stuff, and Mom, of course, had a list of things they needed from the store (especially tissues - courtesy of this sudden nasty _thing_ Riley had come down with). She was feeling bad.

She tried lying in bed, got bored, turned on the TV, got scared, then found herself back under her covers to feel lonely, bored, and miserable.

A bad day.

But things always can go from bad to worse, or from bad to good, in a matter of minutes, as she soon found out when she went downstairs into the kitchen to get a drink of water (and rid herself of some unwanted mucus that had decided to rest on her tongue). Gagging it up and thoroughly rinsing out her mouth, she had resigned herself to her fate of returning to her room. That's when she saw a box sitting near her, on the kitchen table. A box? What was it doing there? Why did it have her name written on it in permanent marker (and was that Mom's handwriting)? Questions and curiosity flooded her head. With mixed feelings, she weighed whether or not to open it, whether or not it was a surprise meant for her or not. But a few snips on the scissors solved it, right across the vaguely familiar logo that she couldn't quite place, and the box was open. Eagerly, she opened it up.

And she felt confused at first, then suddenly very _very_ happy.

Inside the box were several nice, big cookies, some in familiar shapes. There were hockey sticks, some characters she recognized (and some she couldn't quite recall - what was that bowtie-wearing penguin from, anyway?), wrapped in that type of paper she'd always seen in all sorts of doughnut shops and bakeries.

Bakeries?

Aha! It clicked in her head in an instant - _that's_ where she'd seen that logo before: there was a bakery not far downtown (a little ways past that awful pizza place), an honest, _normal_ bakery that she'd always wanted to try out sometime! And now that a box full of those cookies were here, they looked so delicious! She reached for it...

Then stopped. Something in her held her hand back. _'No,'_ she thought, _'This is wrong! I-I don't know if Mom and Dad were saving this for me as a surprise or not...'_

A moral conundrum clicked in her eleven-year-old head, and she had quite a mental debate over it. Should she tape it back? She was always an honest kid, of course, and the possibility of simply telling Mom about it did cross her mind. But would Mom be mad that she spoiled a surprise? Decisions, decisions...

But...

But they called to her. They looked so delicious, especially the big one in the middle, with its purple frosting, and yellow-and-green sprinkles. It looked heavenly, even if she felt sick and had a nasty sore throat. In fact, it looked like the most delicious one in the box. But then again: what would Mom and Dad say? That thought alone stopped her, again, and it was a while before the conundrum came to a close.

* * *

She shut the door to her room behind her, taking care not to spill the glass of milk or drop the especially enticing treat as she held it in a napkin. Sitting down on her bed, Riley licked her lips, ready to enjoy the delicious pastry.

And yet, deep in her mind, she didn't feel completely fine with it.

"N-No! No! No, no, no, no, no, no, no and definitely _no!_ " Fear proclaimed, standing between Joy and the console, "We are not doing this!"

"Don't be-" Joy began, but was interrupted with a sneeze before continuing, "Don't be such a Debbie Downer, Fear! Look at that!" She spun him to face the monitor. "Doesn't that look good? Huh?"

He had to admit, the cookie was tempting. "W-Well, yes, yeah, but Joy what are you doing?!" He shot his purple hands out to keep hers off the console, "Stop! What if Mom and Dad catch us?!"

"They're gone."

"But what if they do?! There's no guarantee that they won't walk in because they left those cookies as a test and we failed and they're so mad at us and-"

"Shhh, calm down," the gold one replied with her signature smile, "Everything will be alright, 'kay? Look, if it's not for Riley, why's her name on it?"

"Maybe it's for a different Riley?" Fear offered. Joy's arched eyebrow shot down the ridiculous thought. "Okay, yeah," he admitted, "But I still don't like it!"

"Me neither," Disgust said, wearing another pair of rubber gloves and adjusting her doctor's mask. The risk of getting sick thanks to Joy was (in her eyes) too high to not don the appropriately protective attire. "I mean, Fear's right - do you know how embarrassing that would be if we got our hands caught in the cookie jar?"

"Heh, well it's - it's a box," Joy offered with a shrug.

"The point stands," Disgust replied, "Now, Joy, please get back to resting - you look like you need it still, and I am _not_ wanting to touch the console at the same time as you."

"Oh, but- but-... I'm feeling... I..." Joy racked her brain to find a reason why she didn't have to rest, why she didn't _need_ to stay away from the console, but no idea lasted for more than a second before it was gunned down. "Alright..." Joy muttered, shoulders slouched. Her deflated sigh came with a sniffle of disappointment, and the other two emotions couldn't help but exchange concerned glances. Joy sulked over to the couch and flopped onto it.

"Maybe... maybe we were too hard on her?" Fear offered timidly.

Disgust's concerned eyes seemed to agree. She cleared her throat. "Joy?" she said, "Joy, maybe... maybe we were too hard on you, so..." but her voice trailed off to a flat close. She looked back to Fear and hissed, "Ugh, I'm bad at apologies, and you know it! Why don't you do it?"

"B-But me? But, b-but, no! No, what if I make it worse? What if-"

A tiny blue hand tapped him on the back, and Sadness (a mere observer of the scene up to this point), stepped up to suggest, "Hey... I think... I could, you know, help."

"Please?" Fear begged.

"Okay..." she replied with a faint smile. She was being helpful, and - truth be told - after all these years of being shoved aside, it was nice that the others were finally seeing the use she had. The little blue ball went to Joy, curled up on the couch, to make her feel better. "Hey, Joy?"

"Huh? Me?" Joy asked tiredly, "No, I think you're thinking of _Joy_ , I'm apparently Little Miss Mischevious Who-Doesn't-Like-Fun-Unless-It's-Wrong."

Sadness blinked, but brushed off the comment. "Yeah, uh... Joy, Fear and Disgust wanted to say they're sorry, and-"

It was like a lightswitch. Joy sprung off the couch. "Really? Great! Awesome!" She darted across the room, hugging Fear and Disgust (who gagged behind her mask at the thought of all those imaginary germs) before shoving past and seizing the console, revving a lever up to maximum power. It all happened in a few seconds, and it took equally as long for her green and purple companions to process it all. When they did, they screamed, and piled onto the console, too, trying hard to influence Riley the _other_ way.

It was too late - she was thoroughly enjoying the sweet, delicious pastry, a guilty grin spreading across her face. Like clockwork, out came a memory orb, and Riley munched away. Had the others not been so wrapped up at the console, they may have heard Sadness gasp in wonder and point out, "Hey! It's another new one! I-It's got three this time!"

But they didn't hear her observance of the brand new memory type, taking place on the shelves next to many other mixed orbs (and a few plain colored ones). It wasn't until afterword that they saw it, and by then that guilty pleasure of a treat had passed all the way down into Riley's stomach, a bright patch of sun on an otherwise dreary afternoon.


	20. Determination

More times than not, the human mind is running at a reasonable pace. On any given day, yours is likely synced up to the world around you perfectly. As you walk down the sidewalk, you experience the thumping of your feet without a second thought. As you drive to work, you take note of the cars around you - and their drivers take note of you - exactly as they come and go. On an average day, you'd feel everything happening in-tempo, marching along like a drum major leading a band.

This isn't always the case, though. See, the human mind is a flexible thing in some regards, time being one of them. You're probably aware of how it feels in the morning, when you're just waking up, unable to process anything around you thoroughly as those workers in your head slowly get back to their regular tasks. The cobwebs of the night slowly clear away while the morning breaks in, and - before you know it - time has skipped ahead a whole hour! The day goes by in a blur, your brain scarcely keeping up with it all. A meeting, a discussion, an emergency, a veritable hurricane of activity envelops you on the suddenly busy day, and your brain just can't keep up, regrettably out of touch with the speed that time seems to be firing past.

Then there are the other moments; small, fleeting ones, where your mind's tempo revs up to an incredible speed, and you find yourself thinking far ahead of everyone and everything around you. You see the cup falling off the counter, and you're able to catch it. You slam on your brakes, sparing you a collision with the careless driver in front of you. Quickly thinking, your mind seamlessly transitions into a high-speed, slow-motion state, and you are able to do things that (on any other day) you'd never think possible.

A certain twelve-year-old named Riley experienced such a moment once.

There she was - out on the rink. Her new team, the Foghorns, were in a precarious spot. Victory meant the playoffs would come to greet them, and they'd be moving on to something they hadn't tasted in years. Defeat, on the other hand, meant another unhappy end to a short-lived season, everyone wondering what could have been. On the ice, Riley was only aware of a handful of things at the moment. Amid the backdrop of the opposing team, so fast that they were a smear of purple, yellow, and red, she saw the single most important object in the arena - the hockey puck.

One of the opposing players, in their haste to score a goal and win the game for their own team, had fumbled with his stick, and sent the puck soaring in the _opposite_ direction. Specifically, over the rink's cold surface, straight to Riley Andersen. Nobody on either team had counted on this. Not the foghorns, not their opponents, not even Riley.

In her mind, her gears began ticking and the situation began dawning like a sunrise, a gleam of hope echoing across HQ, where five little friends stood at the console, heedless of how slow timed seemed to be moving on the outside. They were much too focused on the fact that the puck was now coming towards Riley.

"The puck!" Fear screamed, "The puck! It's coming! It's coming our way! Don't miss it! _Joy, don't miss it!"_

He'd latched onto her, shaking her by the shoulders, intense, panic-ridden eyes staring her down in utter terror. The thought of missing this golden opportunity, handed to them on a silver platter, was too much for the frayed nerve to take.

 _Smack!_

Disgust's hand had smacked him across the face. The little purple thing glanced at her.

"Calm down!" she said, "If we panic, we mess up. If we mess up, _everyone will know it!_ "

"Oh, yeah, like that one time..."Sadness pressed a button. A memory was brought to the forefront of Riley's mind; the Prarie Dogs. Loosing the playoffs. Thanks to her. It was a frozen blue hue, as cold as the ice they stood on.

"Ahh! Okay, okay, I get it!"

A purple hand slapped a button, and the orb went away, and the hockey puck had gotten closer. What's more, as Anger noted, "Great! They're noticing! Look at the goalie!"

The opposing team player had a growing trace of alarm on him, his body twirling slowly around, sprawling limbs caught mid-scramble as he began making a move back to where he needed to be.

"Heh, he does a good impression of _you_ ," Joy said to Fear.

Fear squeaked in horror. "He's gonna block us!"

"The puck's getting closer, Panic!" Anger snarled, "Are you gonna help Riley, or what?!"

"Hey, I like that!" Joy chirped, a finger pointed in the air, "We should all have nicknames! I can be Happiness, you could-"

"What?" Anger asked, confused, "No, no. No, it was from a cartoon, a movie, it- there was this bad guy who was skinny and- look, never mind! We gotta move, and _now!"_

As Joy remembered the score (and, more importantly, the _time on the game clock),_ the gravity of it all set in. "Oh... oh! Oh, crud! We gotta-"

"Here's the plan!" Fear shouted, eyes ratcheted to the monitor as his hands seized a lever. What followed was something unheard of as Fear took charge and shot out words like so many bullets from a machine gun, each faster than the last, it seemed. "Joy, other end, pronto! Keep Riley reminded of the goal and us winning! Anger, by me, now! We need your aggression now more than ever while I scare her with how close the game is - if you're not there, she'll lock up instead of using me to make her move. Disgust, Sadness, eyes on Hockey Island and the Core Memories! The last thing I want is it getting loose! Joy, on my signal, you make Riley swing like she's never swung before! 'Kay, everyone got it?!"

Dead silence while each processed it, some nodding, others not, but another yelp from Fear brought their attentions to the monitor. The puck was inches away, and would soon be out of range.

Joy flung herself at the console. Anger grit his teeth and helped Fear with the lever, while Disgust and Sadness scrambled back to check on the Core Memories. The console lit up and time closed in. Joy slammed a button, and a fire ignited in Riley's chest. As she swung the stick across, hitting the puck and sending it shooting off in a new direction, a vibrant orb of red, yellow, and purple rolled to the shelf. Just as it _clinked_ against the others, the hockey puck slammed into the netting.

From first seeing the puck to that sweet, final victory, less than a second had zipped by in Riley's mind. First, she saw the chance that nobody else did as the little black thing went shooting her way. Next, she remembered a similar situation to this one, years ago, when the Prairie Dogs lost their own chance at the playoffs. The thought was unwelcome, and it's what caused her to glance over at the goalie, whose horrified, bulging eyes reminded her so much of that little blue monster from "Hercules," (except this one bore the red, purple, and yellow emblem of the Bay Dragons). Just then, she saw the opportunity line up, and she felt an aggressive wave of heat hit her chest. _'That goal,'_ she thought, as she swung, _'Is mine!'_

 _Clack!_

 _Buzz!_

And a volcanic roar while the crowd cheered the winning goal. She let loose with a laugh and a smile, and her teammates swarmed her with matching expressions.


	21. Pride

There she was - Riley Andersen - out on the ice rink, feeling like a giant spotlight of attention beamed down right on her tiny figure. Twelve years old and full to the brim with adrenaline, the little bullet was a force to be reckoned with, as the opposing team had found out the very hard way, zipping around the rink like Dash, her hockey stick slamming that puck many times over the course of the game. But then _it_ came - the moment - the fine line swinging down to meet her in a microscopic eternity. Only a blink long, this _moment_ focused in and held her in its grip. Her heart pounded once as she looked up to see that little black puck swinging across the ice, a mistake the other team would regret - she hoped.

This was the last shot. The score was tied, the game was closing in with _seconds_ left to go, and the puck was headed her way. A crash of emotions erupted before her fear took over, grabbing her by the chest and kicking her into action. Her body obeyed; all at once, the trajectory lined up, the math done without her even noticing, reflexes jumping in.

Fire, excitement, fear, tension, rage, anger. Intensity. They flamed to life in her very soul, each bone electric with emotion.

The puck came in.

The stick came down.

A satisfying _crack._

The buzz of the goal.

The red and green numbers lit up on the scoreboard.

The yellow light jumped on to announce the point.

And time returned to life. The game ended, and she felt an explosion of noise as the crowd blew up - a titanic roar of celebration crashed the arena. It swallowed her whole, much like the sea of her teammates swarming in, faces matching her stunned smile.

That was all on the outside. _Inside,_ of course, had a similar-but-different scenario playing out. Yes, there was cheering, but only of five people up in HQ. Yes, there was celebration - but it was mostly from Joy as she swung her arms around Fear and Anger, her siblings reacting nervously and in irritation respectively. Sadness and Disgust walked up, the blue one clapping and the green one offering a mild cheer of her own. Hockey Island needed no describing at that point; a firework in the day, a beacon of activity as alive and kicking as Riley herself.

"We did it! Riley did it! You did it! We all did it!" The gold emotion was running around, celebration riding her voice in a babble of words like those.

As Joy scampered around, Anger felt a light punch. He flinched, scowled, and almost tightened his eyebrows further at Disgust, who had offered the congratulatory gesture. "Hey, not bad, hothead."

He couldn't help the pride as he cracked his knuckles. "Well, yeah, I mean, it's not like I was gonna let Riley let that _stupid_ team steal this win from us!"

Disgust noted the faint shimmer of heat above her coworker's red head, and - so - decided to keep him from erupting. Again.

"Yeah!" she said earnestly, "Ugh, those jerks, especially that one kid."

"The dope with the missing tooth?"

"Yeah! What was his problem?"

"I dunno, but he's lucky he didn't get near us during the game, the way he stuck that friggin' tongue out, I was ready to just-"

"I _know,_ right? Definitely _not_ a good sportsman like Riley," the green one stated, a flick of her hair accompanying her nose jutting up into the air.

"Guys?" Sadness mumbled, giving a soft tug on Disgust's dress, "Hey, Riley's just standing there all quiet again. Should we... Sh-should we make her do something, or-"

"I got it!" Disgust, Anger, and Joy all shouted in unison, driving to the console with tunnel vision.

When Anger slammed that button, he felt the heat of rage aimed at the opposing team, a hint of spite sniping their way.

As Disgust yanked a lever back, sneer riding her features, she soaked up the victory, letting the eyes and cheers all around Riley fuel her.

And Joy, of course, beamed brightly when she turned the crank, a warm glow of excitement washing over Riley as she let loose a big laugh.

All of these things mixed and mingled in that orb that came tumbling out; red, green, and yellow - another victory for Riley's library of memories.

* * *

 **Temporary Author's note: Yeah, sorry this one's so short. I'm trying to ease my way back into this, and I don't wanna force a lengthy chapter if it means sacrificing quality. ;)**


End file.
